News
Cryptocurrency Competition and the U.S. Monetary System
Jesús Fernández-Villaverde argues that a purely private monetary system, such as Bitcoin, is not a cure-all for the problems of over-issuing, double-spending, and counterfeiting. Cryptocurrency fails to provide the socially optimum quantity of money and requires additional regulation, he says. Read the full article in The Wharton School's Public Policy Initiative Issue Brief: Volume 6, Number 5.
In Memoriam: Peter F. Christoffersen, 1967-2018
Professor Peter F. Christoffersen, Professor of Finance and TMX Chair in Capital Markets at the University of Toronto, passed away on June 22, 2018.
Frank DiTraglia was Awarded a Course Development Grant
Assistant Professor of Economics, Frank DiTraglia has been awarded a course development grant for ECON 224: Statistical Learning and Causal Inference for Economics by the SAIL course development grant committee. This new course will focus on modern techniques and essential skills in data analysis. It builds on the material taught in Econ 103 and Econ 104.
Breaking the bank: A discussion with economics professor Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde on the history and future of cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have been around for a long time, historically in the form of tokens, Jesús Fernández-Villaverde of the School of Arts
Mark Perfect Awarded the Yardley Prize from the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships
Mark Perfect, a Mathematical Economics major, was awarded the Yardley Award from Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. The award was for his project under the direction of Professor Jere Behrman and Professor Holger Sieg, “Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: Measuring the Impact of the Recovery School District on Student Outcomes.”
Recent Penn Economics graduates win the National Institute of Justice's Real-Time Crime Forecasting Competition
Recent Penn Economics graduates Mike Chirico (BA'11, PhD'17) and Pau Pereira (PhD'17) were two members of a winning team (Team Kernel Glitches) in the National Inst
Economics Faculty Holger Sieg on Study about Student Debt
Penn Study: Student Debt Alters Career, Partner Paths for Young Female Lawyers by economists Holger Sieg of Penn and Yu Wang of Ryerson.
Philadelphia FSRDC: A New Tool for Urban Research Launches in September 2017
A new center at Penn aims to give researchers a place to access and overlay rich sets of federal confidential data concerning everything from healthcare and labor to housing and urban demographics. The center, which will open in September 2017, is called the Philadelphia Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC).
The Economics Department Welcomes New Faculty for 2017-2018
Penn Arts and Sciences has appointed two new members to its standing Economics faculty for the 2017-2018 academic year.
New Fellows of the Game Theory Society
George J. Mailath, Professor of Economics and Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences, Department Chair, Andrew Postlewaite, Harry P. Kamen Professor of Economics and Professor of Finance, and Rakesh Vohra, George A. Weiss and Lydia Bravo Weiss University Professor were elected as fellows of the Game Theory Society.