Recent Departmental News

Dr. Dawn Elliott's More Than Budgets program was adopted as a part of a Federal Government Experiment commissioned through Workforce Solutions - the Special Project Group. Seven counties in the country have been selected in this program and Tarrant County, Texas, is the first, in which it is being conducted. The experiment is designed to determine whether the recidivism rate of individuals recently leaving the prison system is reduced by providing them with support programs regarding employment opportunities and financial literacy. It is a randomized experiment - one group receives the various support and the other none. The project will run for 5 years through the US Department of Labor.

Dr. Dawn Elliott presented the results of a comprehesnive research survey on financial services in Jamaica at the Mobile Financial Services Conference in Mona, Jamaiaca, in December 2011. The survey headed by Dr. Elliott and contracted by Solutions for Society, a Think Tank of the University of the West Indies, showed that 33.65 percent of the adult population in Jamaica do not own bank accounts and therefore use cash or the non-bank payment outlets at relatively high costs. The results of the survey have been widely reported in the press, including in the Jamaica Observer. For more details, see article 1, article 2 and article 3.

The TCU Department of Economics invites applications for two tenure-track position at the Assistant Professor level beginning August 2012. The deadline for applications is November 15, 2011. Departmental representatives will be interviewing candidates at the American Economic Association meeting in Chicago. For more information, please go to Position 1 and Position 2.

Dr. Rob Garnett has been invited to speak (along with Professors Joel Mokyr and Lynne Kiesling) at the fourth annual "Wealth and Well Being of Nations" forum at Beloit College on October 28. This year's featured guest is 2010 Nobel Laureate, Elinor Ostrom.

Dr. Maria Sarigiannidou has joined the faculty of the department in August 2011. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Tennessee.

Dr. Stephen Quinn presented a paper, entitled "How Amsterdam Got Fiat Money" at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington DC in June.

Dr. Dawn Elliott's financial literacy project More Than Budgets has secured the financial support of Comerica Bank for the academic year 2011-12 and will be offered in at least two homeless shelters in the DFW area. The project has been featured on NBC (see clip). For more information, go to the website of the project.

Dr. Charles Sawyer's new book Latin American Economic Development, co-authored with Javier Reyes from the University of Arkansas, was published by Routledge in March 2011. For more information, go to the book's website.

Dr. Dawn Elliott has been appointed as Research Associate at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute for Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica. For more information, visit the institute's website.

Dr. Stephen Quinn is the recepient of a summer stipend from the Grant Submission Incentive Program at TCU for his grant proposal, entitled "Rediscovering an Early Central Bank".

In April 2011, Dr. Dawn Elliott was invited as a keynote speaker at a conference, entitled "Strategies for Enhancing Jamaican Competitiveness in the Global Knowledge Economy". The conference and Dr. Elliott's presentation were featured in an article in the Jamaica Observer. (read the article and watch a video of Dr. Elliott's talk)

Dr. Rob Garnett is the recipient of the newly created AddRan Administrative Fellowship for the academic year 2011-2012.

Dr. John Harvey has a new economics blog on Forbes.com. (go to the blog)

Senior Sarah Kline placed fourth in a regional essay competition organized by the Dallas/Fort Worth Association for Business Economics. Sarah's essay was on "Europe's Stability and Growth Pact: History, Failings, and Future". Sarah will be graduating in May with a BA degree in Political Science and Modern Languages and a BS degree in Economics.

In December 2010, Dr. Dawn Elliott was invited to present a paper at the Mobile Financial Services Conference in Jamaica, which brought together academics, policy makers and development experts. The conference, which featured Jamaica's Minister of Finance as keynote speaker, attracted widespread attention and was covered in The Gleaner. For more information, go to the conference's website and read the press coverage (article 1, article 2, article 3). As a result of the conference, Dr. Elliott was appointed lead consultant for a USAID project on the impact of mobile financial services on the unbanked in Jamaica.

Dr. John Lovett published a new textbook, entitled Horizons in Macroeconomics: An Introduction to the Macroeconomy, in February 2010.