Professor Shachar Kariv Spearheads "Xlab Mobile" Project

Xlab Director Professor Shachar Kariv and colleagues from transportation engineering have secured $60,000 to develop "Xmobile" -- GPS-capable smartphones used as a tool for social science. This technology will aid in gathering and analyzing commute information about large numbers of people. Kariv says, “I strongly believe this is the kind of startup that can become (a game-changer) like Facebook. It can really change the way we do social sciences.” Xmobile is rolling forward fast, with additional funding from CITRIS, a prototype built, and an experiment involving deducing where people buy their food expected to start this semester. Read the full article in the UC Berkeley NewsCenter...

 

Professor Emmanuel Saez Featured in the New York Times for Work on Income Inequality

According to the New York TImes, "Emmanuel Saez [UC Berkeley] and Thomas Piketty [Paris School of Economics] have spent the last decade tracking the incomes of the poor, the middle class and the rich in countries across the world. More than anything else, their work shows that the top earners in the United States have taken a bigger and bigger share of overall income over the last three decades, with inequality nearly as acute as it was before the Great Depression." Read the full article...

 

Science, Intellectual Property, and Innovation Conference: March 2012

“Science, Intellectual Property, and Innovation"  was the theme of the Spring 2012 conference of the All-UC Group in Economic History.  the conference was held March 23-25 in Berkeley at the Haas School of Business and at the Hotel Shattuck Plaza. Conference sponsors include IBER, the Competition Policy Center, the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society, the Haas School, and of course the All-UC Group itself.  Forty-five scholars attended, and all thirteen papers presented are available on the conference website.

 

Professor Edward Miguel Receives 2012 Distinguished Teaching Award

CONGRATULATIONS TO PROF. EDWARD MIGUEL! The UC Berkeley Committee on Teaching has selected five recipients of the Distinguished Teaching Award for 2012. Professor Miguel has received an award for his superb teaching in the Department of Economics. A public recognition ceremony will take place on Thursday, April 26 at 5pm in the Zellerbach Playhouse. A reception follows in the Toll Room of the Alumni House.

 

CEGA Hosted Summit in Washington, D.C. on March 2, 2012

To promote the use of research by policy-makers in Congress, aid agencies, and NGOs, CEGA hosted a summit on Friday, March 2nd:  "Ending Poverty through Education: New Evidence from India and Africa."  The event was held at the University of California Washington Center in D.C. and was co-sponsored by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA).

 

Former IBER Graduate Student John Bellows Discovers $2 Trillion Error

From the UC Berkeley News Center, August 10, 2011: "John Bellows... U.S. Treasury Department’s acting assistant secretary, has generated widespread buzz in finance and policy circles since finding a $2 trillion error in the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) calculations it used to support a historic decision to downgrade the nation’s credit rating." Bellows was a 2004 IBER Shapiro Fellow. Read the full article

 

Professor Ron Lee Edits New Book on Population Aging

Ronald Lee, Professor of Demography and Director of UC Berkeley's Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging, in collaboration with Andrew Mason, Professor of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa and Senior Fellow, Population and Health Studies, East-West Center, Hawaii, US, has edited a new book entitled Population Aging and the Generational Economy: A Global Perspective.

This ground-breaking book provides a comprehensive analysis of changes in population age structure across the globe and their effect on the macroeconomy. The result of a seven-year research project involving over 50 economists and demographers from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States, the book draws on a new and comprehensive conceptual framework – National Transfer Accounts – to quantify the economic lifecycle and economic flows across generations.

A book launch reception was held in New York on September 19, 2011. To read reviews and to order your copy of this important new work, please see the National Transfer Accounts website.

Professor Karlene Roberts Receives Academy of Management Award

August 9, 2011: "Professor Emeritus Karlene Roberts has been honored with the Academy of Management’s 2011 Practice Impact Award in recognition of her nearly 30 years of risk management research. ... Since 1984 Roberts has been studying the design and management of organizations and systems of organizations in which errors can have catastrophic consequences. Her research examines organizations that have not experienced catastrophe as well as organizations that have had serious accidents in order to understand the management processes they should have engaged in." Professor Roberts is the Chair of IBER's Catastrophic Risk Managment Center (CCRM).
Read the full article...

 

Recent Shapiro Fellow Spots S&P's $2 Trillion Error

From the UC Berkeley News Center: "John Bellows may not have the household-name recognition of Timothy Geithner, Ben Bernanke or Christina Romer.  But the U.S. Treasury Department’s acting assistant secretary has generated widespread buzz in finance and policy circles since finding a $2 trillion error in the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) calculations it used to support a historic decision to downgrade the nation’s credit rating." Bellows was a 2004 IBER Shapiro Fellow. Read the full article...

 

IBER Hosts 2011 Behavioral Economics Annual Meeting

IBER hosted the Behavioral Economics Annual Meeting (BEAM) on May 23rd and 24th in the Wells Fargo Room of the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. Participation was by invitation only, but the conference program and conference papers are on line for the public to access. Please see http://iber.berkeley.edu/behavioral_economics_conference/.

 

Congratulations to Dr. Leora Lawton,
Executive Director of our Berkeley Population Center! 

Leora has received this year’s William Foote Whyte Distinguished Career Award by the American Sociological Association's Section on Sociological Practice & Public Sociology.  The William Foote Whyte Award is for up to two individuals who have made notable contributions to sociological practice and public sociology, which can include several of the following elements: outstanding clinical, applied or public sociological work, exceptional service to the section, publications that advance both the theory and methods of sociological practice or public sociology, or mentoring and training of students for careers in sociological practice or public sociology.

 

Carl Shapiro Named to Obama's Council of Economic Advisors

From the White House, February 23, 2011: "President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Carl Shapiro as a member of the Council of Economic Advisors. President Obama said, 'Carl Shapiro has demonstrated knowledge and dedication throughout his career.  I am grateful that he has chosen to take on this important role, and I look forward to working with him in the months and years to come.'" Read the full press release...

 

Janet Yellen Appointed to Federal Reserve Board of Governors

Janet Yellen, CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and professor emerita at the Haas School of Business, is the new vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Yellen was nominated for the post by President Barack Obama in April, confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Sept. 29, and sworn in by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke on October 4, 2010.

 

CEGA Co-sponsors Evidence to Action Symposium

On April 15th 2010, the Center of Evaluation for Global Action co-sponsored the Evidence to Action Symposium at the Bancroft Hotel in Berkeley on de-worming and other low-cost, high-impact solutions for global health and education. This website features pre-sentations and information from the meeting, as well as links to films screened at the event.

 

Professor Teck-Hua Ho Receives Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award

Haas School Marketing Professor and Xlab affiliate Teck-Hua Ho has received the Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award in April 2010. The award is given to four Berkeley professors each year after a rigorous selection process. Read more details via Haas School Newsroom!

 

Xlab investigator Wins MacArthur “Genius” Award

Prof. Maneesh Agrawala is among the 24 new MacArthur "genius" Fellows announced Tuesday, Sept. 22, by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.  Prof. Agrawala’s research focuses on “developing new tools and algorithms to visualize and efficiently make sense of tremendous volumes of information.” The Xlab is proud to have played a small part in Prof. Agrawala’s research:  over the last two years, he and his students conducted five experiments on this subject in the Xlab, involving over 130 subjects.  His webpage is a cornucopia of visually-intense links to various aspects of his research.  More information on this year’s MacArthur Fellows can be found on the foundation’s website.

 

IBER Professors Study Gambling and Emotions

“Planned versus Actual Betting in Sequential Gambles,” by Haas marketing professors Eduardo Andrade and Ganesh Iyer, finds that in the planning phase, people behave conservatively—they say they will bet less in a following gamble in the event they lose a previous one. However, after experiencing an actual loss, individuals open their pocketbooks wider than planned.

 

IBER and the "Obama Brain Trust"

President-elect Barack Obama has announced he will nominate IBER investigator Christina Romer as Chair of his Council of Economic Advisors.  Prof. Romer’s current project is funded by the National Science Foundation, “ The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Cuts: New Estimates Derived from a Narrative Approach.”

Haas School Professor and recent IBER Chair Carl Shapiro, an expert in the economics of antitrust and innovation, has been named Chief Economist in the US Department of Justice's antitrust division. Shapiro, the Transamerica Professor of Business Strategy, previously served as deputy assistant attorney general for economic analysis in the Justice Department from 1995 to 1996. He has been a member of the Haas faculty since 1991.