Ph.D. Students, Past and Present
Current Students
Jing Chen (expected 2009). Jing's research spans the traditional field of labor and the emerging field of the economics of entrepreneurship focuses. Among her recent research: a study of technological change and firm growth differentially affects job tenure of different kinds of workers within a firm; a study of wealth effects in entrepreneurship using birth order in Korea to instrument wealth; and a study contrasting stars and misfits in self-employment. Jing has become quite the expert on the PSID and other large-scale panel studies. to engage in a very micro-level analysis of this topic. 

 

 

 Dmitriy Krichevski (expected 2010). Dmitriy's first paper studies the effect of imperfect information about the state of nature on the decision to become an entrepreneur, and its consequences for new firm performance. He is now branching out into new questions of the economics of entrepreneurship.

 

 Fatma Deli (expected 2011). Fatma's first paper is a study of how local unemployment rates differentially affect entry into self-employment by individuals at different places in the skill distribution. The study builds on recent work differentiating between opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship.

 

 Mohamad Nassereddine (expected 2011).
Past Students

Zhao (Brian) Rong (FIU - 2008). Brian's dissertation studied the extent to which managers can predict the value of patents. He developed a clever research design that uses insider trading patterns as an indicator of managers' beliefs. An independent thinker, Brian solves his own technical problems and kept me in a state of underemployment.

Ioana (R.) at graduation, with my colleague Mihaela Pintea.

 Ioana Popovici (FIU - 2007). Ioana's dissertation focuses on the relationship between property rights and innovation. Ioana did most of her dissertation without much help from me and produced three very nice empirical papers, so I know she has a great career ahead of her. She is a Senior Research Associate at the Health Economics Research Group of the University of Miami.

 

 

Jeff's the ugly one on the right. The woman making him smile is his partner, Cinthia.

 Jeff Czajkowski  (FIU - 2007). Jeff's dissertation is an eclectic mix of work on environmental topics. One piece, a very nice paper on contingent valuation methods, was published in Land Economic in 2009. His major work, at least by weight, is a calibrated optimal stopping model of hurricane evacuation decision making. I'm expected a lot of valuable practical policy advice to come from this work. Jeff is now an assistant professor at Austin College.

 

Yuanyuan Peng (FIU - 2007). Yuanyuan's dissertation measures the effect of firm strategies -- notably product quality choice and product diversification -- on firm performance. Her work on the British automobile industry produced some very intriguing results. Yuanyuan is now working as a statistician for Affinion Group in Connecticut.

 

Rebecca, with her husband Mike, on one of our fishing vacations in the Keys.

 Rebecca Achee Thornton (U. Houston - 2001). Rebecca's main dissertation paper measured knowledge spillovers in wartime shipbuilding using  non-parametric methods. It was a nice enough piece to find a home at the AER. Rebecca is Clinical Assistant Professor of Economics and Director of Undergraduate Advising and Affairs at the University of Houston.