Seminar: Robert Lemke

Our next department seminar will be next Friday, March 4, at 3:30 p.m. in room 230 Wimberly Hall. Professor Robert Lemke (Lake Forest College) will present "Explaining Game-to-Game Ticket Sales for Major League Baseball Games Over Time," research he is working on with some of his undergraduate students. Please encourage our upper division econ class students to attend.

In the News

Amy Lewis, President of the UW-L Econ Club, was in the Tribune:

Amy Lewis catches herself browsing the Internet for jobs when she should be doing homework. The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse senior has a world of job opportunities at her fingertips — and many of them are out of state.

“I think now with the way transportation is ... it’s easy to think you can go anywhere in the world,” she said, “and it’s not like you are tied to any one region.”

Some polls suggest Wisconsin’s “best and brightest” graduates leave the state, a phenomenon often called brain drain. But the majority of graduates from University of Wisconsin System schools as well as our local colleges stay in Wisconsin. Sixty-seven percent of University of Wisconsin-La Crosse students, 75 percent of Viterbo students and 90 percent of Western Technical College students found employment or placement in Wisconsin within six months of graduation, based on the schools’ most recent data.

Lewis will graduate in December with degrees in economics and marketing, and
she wants to stay local. She has worked at Pearl Ice Cream Parlor & Confectionery and Features Sports Bar and Grill in West Salem during college, and she likes the small town business feel.

But she’s also a realist.

“I don’t expect to find a career once I graduate, even though I have a four-year degree from a great university,” she said. “I have no skills, no work experience to make me stand out.”

Seminar: Nick Herro

The Economics Department Seminar Series kicks off next week.  Our first speaker will be Nick Herro, UWL Economics Major, working with James Murray.  Nick will present "Measuring Uncertainty in Central Bank Decisions and its Impact on Macroeconomic Outcomes" on Friday, February 18th at 3:30 p.m. in room 230 room 141 Wimberly. 

Spring 2011 Seminars

Month	Date	Presenter	Affiliation	Title
February	18	Nick Herro	UW-L student	Measuring Uncertainty in Central Bank Decisions and its Impact on Macroeconomic Outcomes
March	4	Robert Lemke	Lake Forest College	Sports economics
March	23	Eric Morser	Skidmore College	The Political Economic History of La Crosse
April	8?	Tom Weiss	U of Kansas	Tourism and travel, an economic history
May	6	Lisa Giddings	UW-La Crosse	Children, Family Size and Household Specialization

Open post in a new tab to see seminar titles.

Economics Reading List

Here is a late list of gift giving suggestions for the econerds out there.

iPhones are hardly 'Made in China'

A recent Wall Street Journal article discusses how global trade is much more complex than our simple trade balance suggests.

iPhones are in fact assembled in China. The wholesale price of an iPhone is $178.96. When a single iPhone is shipped from the manufacturing facilities in China to the United States, that entire $178.96 is considered an import from China and is therefore considered a debit for the Unites States when it comes to our trade balance with China.

The article points out (and gives numbers) that the various components of the iPhone are actually produced all over the world, including computer chips produced in the United States by Broadcom. Japan actually produces the most significant portion of the iPhone: 34% of its wholesale value. Then comes Germany (17%), South Korea (13%), and the United States (6%). China comes in 5th place at 3.4%.

Here is the article:
Not really 'Made in China'. Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2010.

Fuel vs. Food.

The recent tax cut bill, rushed through at the close of 2010, extends a 45 cent per gallon subsidy for including ethanol in fuel. A recent NPR article discusses how this policy affects the price of food.

NPR: Fuel vs. Food

As an economics professor, I find the article woefully void of supply and demand graphs. If this bothered you too, checkout my newest 'PenCast'

To effectively view the PenCast below, click on the orange button on the top to go to full screen, then click the curvy arrow button on the bottom to rotate the view.

ECO 120: Supply Demand Ethanol
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