Economics News

Don Dutkowsky, professor of economics, says cities such as Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse—with clusters of universities nearby and relatively low housing costs—may prove to be more attractive than places with a higher cost of living, such as New York City and Boston.

“The purpose of gaining knowledge is not to get a nice job or a fancy house or season tickets for basketball. Academic research in the social sciences should be motivated by a desire to change things for the better,” says Alexei Abrahams ’08 B.A. (Econ). He credits Syracuse University's Coronat Scholars Program for allowing him to take his time in finding his career path as an economist researching the Israel-Palestine conflict.

"Typically people who qualify for higher SNAP benefits are in the worst health, so this suggests there is something really protective about the SNAP benefits," says Colleen Heflin, professor of public administration and international affairs.

"Theoretically, cash back should be the best rewards currency, since the rewards can be used practically anywhere," says Don Dutkowsky, professor of economics. "But that only holds when the value of the rewards (for a given amount of purchases) of cash back and product/service-based rewards (e.g., airline miles, automobile discounts) are the same." 

Kristy Buzard, assistant professor of economics, and her co-authors find that private R&D labs are highly concentrated over a wide range of spatial scales in both California and the Northeast Corridor of the United States. The authors use distance-based point pattern techniques and a novel approach called the multiscale core-cluster approach to identify major clusters of R&D labs in both regions.

"If the government is serious about exports and jobs, a bolder approach needs to be taken on labor reforms," says Devashish Mitra, professor of economics and the Gerald B. and Daphna Cramer Professor of Global Affairs, about the Indian government.

“For more than 90 years, the way forward for our country has come from the prestigious Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and it has been embodied by Syracuse University professors," said civil rights lawyer Vernon E. Jordan Jr., in his Commencement Address at the Syracuse University All University Commencement.