Faculty Profiles

Agirdas Does Development
Visiting Assistant Professor Cagdas Agirdas’s research focuses on political economy, public choice and development economics. Before coming to Colby, he worked on empirical issues related to media bias, economically self-interested voting and negative campaigning in U.S. Elections. He taught courses in Game Theory, Statistics, Econometrics, Principles of Micro and Macroeconomics. At Colby, he teaches Development Economics, Game Theory and Principles of Macroeconomics.

Barbezat Mentors Young Female Economists
Professor Debra Barbezat’s research focuses on academic labor markets. Her interests include gender pay gaps and the influence of seniority, mobility, collective bargaining, salary structure and other factors on academic salaries. Her research has led to service with the American Council on Education and the American Association of University Professors, and she is a contributing author in Gender and Education: An Encyclopedia. She has been active in the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession’s mentoring program and is featured in CSWEPS Winter 2006 newsletter.

Donihue Directs Impact Assessment of Area Healthcare
Professor Michael Donihue’s current research focuses on the role of housing wealth on retirement saving behavior using a longitudinal data set of US households. During a recent summer, Professor Donihue directed an economic impact assessment of the current healthcare delivery system in Maine’s Kennebec Valley Region. Professor Donihue is chair of the department in 2011-2012.

Findlay Studies Behavioral Effects of Payday Lending
Pugh Family Professor of Economics Dave Findlay’s current research examines the effects of payday lending on individual behavior and on the precautionary demand for money. His research interests also include the ability of the yield curve to predict regional economic activity, the economics of sports, and discrimination in sports. At Colby, he has taught courses in introductory macroeconomics, intermediate macroeconomics, Money and Banking, Presidential Economics, and Open Economy Macroeconomics. Professor Findlay is also Colby’s liaison for the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship.

Long Awarded NSF Grant to Study 19th Century Migration
Associate Professor Jason Long was recently awarded a two-year grant from the National Science Foundation to support his research on social mobility in Britain since 1850. The particular focus of the grant is to explore the roles of education and migration in income mobility. The award pays for Colby students to assist in gathering and analyzing data from 19th century British census records. Long spent his last sabbatical with the Department of Economics at the University of Oxford.

Meehan Specializes in Antitrust Economics
Herbert E. Wadsworth Professor Jim Meehan’s research interests include antitrust and regulation economics, sports economics, and the economics of markets and organizations. Before coming to Colby, he served as an economist at the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, as an economic advisor to one of the commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission, and as an Assistant to the Director of the Bureau of Economics at the Federal Trade Commission. He also serves as a consultant to private clients in antitrust matters.

Vuletin is Visiting Researcher at the Central Bank of Argentina
Assistant Professor Guillermo Vuletin’s current research focuses on exchange rate regimes, capital controls and monetary and fiscal policy. In addition, he also worked on empirical issues related with poverty, informal markets, inequality and labor markets in Latin America and the Caribbean during his internships at the IMF and World Bank. He is a frequent Visiting Researcher at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. and the Central Bank of Argentina.

Waldkirch Shares Expertise on International Economics
Associate Professor of Economics Andreas Waldkirch’s research focuses on economic integration and foreign direct investment (FDI). His recent projects have explored the effect of NAFTA on FDI, the employment and productivity effects of FDI in Mexico, the possibility of productivity spillovers in Ghana and the spatial dimensions of FDI into U.S. states. The Ghana paper is joint with Andra Ofosu ’07 and is published in World Development, one of Economics’ leading development journals. Prof. Waldkirch has recently also been a visiting researcher at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm/Sweden and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany.