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Another year has gone by, one that has brought much change in academia. Our department has also experienced change as well, though many things have thankfully remained much the same. All three programs are continuing to prosper. Undergraduate programs are very popular, and more students choose an economics major when they apply as first year students than transfer into them later. The doctoral program attracted high quality applicants and had one of the highest admission acceptance rates in recent history. The professional master's program is the one that has faced some pressure, with declining interest of international students for studies in the U.S. However, unlike other professional master's programs, MSPE enrollment this year was broadly similar to those in the recent past. It is unclear at this point whether this can be sustained in the medium term, as international student retrenchment deepens, and traditional curricula face competition from new blended programs.
This is why we are excited to announce the development of a new blended professional master's program in economic modeling, AI, and data science (EMAIDS). EMAIDS combines economic theory, econometrics, and applied data science, training students to analyze complex economic relationships. It emphasizes the use of AI-based methods as a tool for forecasting, policy evaluation, and economic decision-making. The program is entirely housed within the Department of Economics, so, every tool that is covered and deployed is customized for economics applications. A particularly exciting feature of this program is a capstone course that lasts four weeks and is akin to a full-time job. Students will be divided into small groups and work on economic projects. The projects will incorporate real data, which the students can complement from public sources as they see fit, and involve specific business-relevant questions. For example, students may be asked to find the best location for a new fast food restaurant in a city, whether to introduce a product in a supermarket and how much to charge for it, how much a company should pay for a particular insurance, and other similar questions. The students will have a 9 to 5 “workday” and consult with an advisor as needed. They will provide a write-up and do a presentation. Just like in a real job, they will have to meet a deadline and work weekends if needed! Exciting stuff.
On the undergraduate front, we inaugurated the Raphael Kiam Economics Learning Center, made possible through a generous donation by Raphael Kiam. This welcoming space includes areas for one-on-one small group interactions and will make learning more enjoyable. The Datalab continues to grow and exposes more undergraduate students to experiential learning. It is now reaching the point where some seniors can be “promoted” and younger students. We will be seeking funding from the university to take the lab to the next level.
The department continues to make large research contributions that add to our understanding of economic processes and policies. I would like to highlight the real-world impact that the expertise of our faculty has had closer to home. A team led by Professors Powers and Albouy provided guidance to the Illinois State Board of Education on its K-12 school funding formula. The state aimed to distribute funding in a way that reduces disparities in primary and secondary education across school districts. Communities not only differ in the amount of funds they can mobilize, but also in the buying power of these funds. Simply put, a dollar of education spending goes further in some places than in others, especially in the case of teacher salaries. Professors Powers and Albouy cranked the numbers to provide the state with specific guidance on how to compensate areas for hiring costs. The recommendations of the team are now enshrined in state law and affect the distribution of billions of dollars for K-12 education in Illinois.
This August, we welcomed five new faculty in our department, the highest annual number of arrivals in the last 10 years or so. This includes three new hires, Feng Chi (Cornell), Morgan Foy (Berkeley) and Hoyoung Yoo (Wisconsin), plus two of last year's hires who spent a year in post docs, Jingnan Liu (Wisconsin) and Marcos Sora (Chicago). The new arrivals keep us a high energy unit.
This year's searches will hopefully be successful and maintain our trajectory of continuously improving the stature of our department. But that is next year's story.
George Deltas