Department of Economics
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Making the Case for People
Economists Dean Spears and Michael Geruso on falling birth rates, global depopulation, and what comes next
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The Economics of Education, or Exploring the Multiverse
Rich Murphy studies the life paths created by our educations and asks, what if?
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Economics as Storytelling: Alumni Q&A with Kyle Kretschman
Now the Head of Economics for Spotify, Kretschman was once a doctoral student studying microeconomics at The University of Texas at Austin. One afternoon in October, we met over Zoom to discuss how he got from one point to the other and how he sees his liberal arts background affecting the work he does now.
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Investing in the Future
Jason Lamin, a 2020 Pro Bene Meritis award recipient, shares what he values in this moment and where he finds inspiration.
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2020 Vision: Examining Some of the Country’s Big Issues
Experts from UT Austin’s College of Liberal Arts weigh in on some of the major issues facing our country and the president-elect over the next four years.
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Rebooting Our Lives After COVID-19
The world’s new reality amid the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing us to confront issues and critically think about how to revive communities slowly, safely and sustainably.
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Alumna Bianna Golodryga Joins CBS This Morning as Co-Host
Liberal Arts alumna Bianna Golodryga has been named co-host of “CBS This Morning.” She graduated in 2000 from The University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and a minor in economics. She began her television career as a bureau producer from the New York Stock Exchange for…
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Where India Goes
UT Austin economist Dean Spears and sociologist Diane Coffey founded the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics (r.i.c.e.) in 2011 with the goal of improving health and well-being in India. They focus on an important driver of economic development: the health of children. Despite rapid economic growth, India’s infant and under-five mortality rate continues to be…
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Putting People First
Jordan Metoyer is an economics and liberal arts honors/urban studies alumna from Inglewood, California, by way of Sugar Land, Texas. She is the recipient of a 2017 Schwarzman scholarship, which will send her to pursue a master’s degree in global affairs with a concentration in public policy at Tsinghua University in Beijing this fall. As…
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A Stand Up Longhorn
The Pro Bene Meritis award is the highest honor bestowed by the College of Liberal Arts. Since 1984, the annual award has been given to alumni, faculty members and friends of the college who are committed to the liberal arts, have made outstanding contributions in professional or philanthropic pursuits or have participated in service related…
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Creating Your Own Noble Purpose
The Pro Bene Meritis Award is the highest honor bestowed by the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. First granted in 1984, it is given each spring to alumni, faculty and friends of the college who are committed to the liberal arts, have made outstanding contributions in professional or philanthropic…
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What I Did Last Summer
Famed Polish Economist Invites UT Student to Think Tank In November 2013, famed Polish economist Leszek Balcerowicz spoke on the UT Austin campus as part of International Education Week, which celebrates the enriching benefits of international education and exchange. Those “enriching benefits” were not lost on one audience member, economics senior Hector Cantu from Monterrey,…
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Budding Economists Launch Journal
The University of Texas at Austin is one of just four schools in the nation to publish its own economics undergraduate research journal. The Developing Economist was founded by students at UT Austin and published its inaugural issue in the spring of 2014, though the process of creating it began much earlier. Members of UT…
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Food for Thought
Government Professor Bartholomew “Bat” Sparrow first got the idea to teach a class about food from his wife, who had worked at Whole Foods for eight years. The result was an undergraduate course—“The Politics of Food in America”—that uses food as a lens through which to view the entire U.S. political system. “The idea was…
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Americans Work Too Much, and That Needs to Change
Work much lately? As we celebrated the American labor movement with Labor Day, a sad fact that we must face is that U.S. workers work more than their counterparts in other wealthy countries, and it doesn’t benefit us much. The average U.S. workweek is 41 hours, compared with Britain’s 38 hours, Germany’s 37 hours and…
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Millennial Nation
A Generational Look at Education, Money and Work Empathetic. Impatient. Innovative. Unfocused. Rational. Naive. Excited. These are the words millennials in the College of Liberal Arts use when they’re asked to describe themselves. However, it’s a question they’re not often asked. Plenty of people, from journalists to researchers to employers, are looking to define who…
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No More Keeping Up with the Joneses
It has long been assumed that many low- and middle-income Americans over-borrow so they can keep up with wealthier Americans—or “keeping up with the Joneses.” This condition is often blamed for the large rise in household debt that occurred during the 2000s, but a UT Austin economist’s research tells a different story. The study examines…
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Can You Leave High School Behind?
The quality of a student’s high school is a key predictor of grades earned in college, according to a new study from The University of Texas at Austin. The study examines the relationship between high school quality and student success at college and takes advantage of the unique policy environment provided by Texas’s Top Ten…
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A Stack of Books
Recently the dean’s office asked liberal arts faculty to provide copies of the books they had authored over the years for a collection to be exhibited in the Gebauer Building. To comply with this request I began making a stack on my office desk. My stack grew to 13 books, including two I had edited…
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Labor Economist Daniel Hamermesh Receives Mincer Award for Lifetime Contributions
Daniel Hamermesh, professor of economics at The University of Texas at Austin, has received the Jacob Mincer Award for Lifetime Contributions to the Field of Labor Economics. The award was presented at the Society of Labor Economists’ annual meeting in Boston, Massachusetts on May 3, 2013. The Mincer award was established in 2004 and is…
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High School and Beyond
University of Texas at Austin sociologist and Population Research Center affiliate Chandra Muller and economist Sandra Black have received a $3.2 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to study the effects of cognition on health, mortality, education and employment from high school and beyond. The three-year grant will support a Muller-led study that…
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Liberal Arts Introduces 10-Month Master of Economics
A new 10-month master’s degree program offered by the Department of Economics will provide a rigorous curriculum and quantitative training to those seeking more economic expertise in a variety of fields. The first cohort will be admitted for the 2013-14 academic year, with classes beginning in July 2013. An undergraduate degree in economics is not…
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Friend and Champion of Education
Bernard Rapoport, Economics Alumnus, Dies at 94 Bernard Rapoport, a Waco businessman who was active in higher education, politics, human rights and philanthropy, died Thursday, April 5. “The University of Texas and our state have lost a great friend who was relentless in his support of education, democracy, the arts and creating opportunity for the…
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Early Earners
Economist looks at the long-term effects of school starting age and family background “Redshirting” is a popular term among parents of the pre-K set, and it has a lot of parents asking a familiar question: Is my child ready to start kindergarten, or would she or he benefit from delaying this debut into the world…
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Research Briefs: Spring 2012
College of Liberal Arts: Not Even Past Brings History to the Public The Web has many sites devoted to history, but only one brings together such a diverse group of historians with expertise in every major field and time period. For the past year, Not Even Past has drawn on the expertise of faculty and…
