Samara Gunter will join the department as a visiting assistant professor for 2008-2009 and will teach introductory and intermediate microeconomics and public finance.  Gunter received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.  Her research interests include child support enforcement, participation in the informal economy, tax credits for low-income workers,and use of automatic payment methods.

Fei Yu has joins the department as a new tenure-track assistant professor in the 2008-2009 academic year.  Before coming to Colby, Professor Yu earned her Ph.D. at Harvard University and taught at Mount Holyoke College.  Her research interests include cost and benefit analysis of environmental policy interventions, the effectiveness of various environmental policy instruments, and the inter-relationships between the environment and energy, health, and economic growth.

The Department of Economics is pleased to welcome Carl Schwinn to the department. Schwinn, a professor of economics at Bates College, is teaching Econometrics at Colby during the fall term. Schwinn received his Ph.D. from Cornell University. His research and teaching include econometrics and statistics, industrial organization, antitrust and regulation, corporate finance, and democratically managed firms.

Congratulations to Professor of Economics Debra Barbezat, who was recently appointed the Mitchell Family Professor of Economics. The Mitchell Professorship was previously held by Tom Tietenberg, who retired in 2008 after 31 years of teaching at Colby.

Assistant Professor of Economics Phil Brown has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Chinese Economists Society (CES), the organization for academics and professionals who conduct research on the Chinese economy. During the 2008-1009 academic year, he will be planning the program for the annual conference to be held in mainland China next summer. Past conferences have drawn several hundred scholars from China, North America, and elsewhere, including nearly a dozen Nobel laureates.

Assistant Professor of Economics Phil Brown has been awarded a major research grant from the National Science Foundation to study the socioeconomic, biophysical, and geopolitical impact of dams in China. Together with Colby RAs and colleagues in Anthropology, Geography, Hydrology, and Political Science at Oregon State University and Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Professor Brown will conduct field research in China over each of the next three summers.

Professor of Economics Debra Barbezat was appointed to the Board of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP), a subcommittee of the American Economics Association. It publishes a three-times-a-year newsletter, organizes sessions at the annual meetings of the AEA and the regional economics associations, runs mentoring workshops, and publishes an annual report on the status of women in the economics profession.

Professor of Economics Michael Donihue has been appointed Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and Associate Dean of Faculty. From 2008-2011, he will help to manage curricular planning, development, and evaluation for the academic program as Colby tackles its first major curricular review in almost two decades.