Areas of expertise political economy public economics bargaining theory and applications empirical microeconomics
Q What are the specific components of RISE? A We’re hiring new faculty. You can’t energize a place without
the bodies for doing it, so this department is growing. My mandate was to add 10 new members to the existing faculty. We’re rethinking the curriculum — both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. What do we want students to learn? How do we want to convey this energy coming out of a new department that is ambitious and really wants to establish itself and play in the big league and not be on the
fringes of the discipline? How do we structure our program and our teaching? So that’s the second component. The new curriculum will be launched in the fall semester 2015. And we’re building bridges across campus. The most immediate one is with the Jones School. Kerry Back, [the J. Howard Creekmore Professor of Finance] at the Jones School, an economist by training, is now a joint member of our department and the business school. We are going to do something quite bold — require all doctoral students
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