Announcements.

News Note

The results of the Southern Economic Association elections were announced at the Southern Economic Association meeting in New Orleans, LA in November 2004. The new officers are:

President-Elect: Catherine C. Eckel, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 

Vice-President: Jonathan H. Hamilton, University of Florida (two-year term)

Board of Trustees: Christopher J. Ruhm. University of North Carolina at Greensboro (four-year term).

The Southern Economic Association Nominating Committee members for the 2006 slate of officers are:

Charles A. Holt (Chair), University of Virginia (cah2k@ virginia.edu)

Robert Feinberg, American University (feinber@ american.edu)

Paul Pecorino, University of Alabama (ppecorin@ cba.ua.edu).

Georgescu-Roegen Prize in Economics

The annual Georgescu-Roegen Prize in Economics was awarded to Paul J. Devereux of the University of California at Los Angeles on November 21, 2004, at the annual meetings of the Southern Economic Association in New Orleans, LA.

The award is given to the author or authors of the article selected by the prize committee as the best to appear in the Southern Economic Journal in the previous volume year. This year's winner is "Cyclical Quality Adjustment in the Labor Market" by Paul J. Devereux. This article appeared in the January 2004 issue, Volume 70, Number 3.

The paper by Devereux is beautifully crafted. The paper examines why job entrants exhibit wages that are more procyclical than the wages of workers not changing jobs. Devereux develops a theoretical job assignment model that explains how the qualifications of workers who are hired for particular jobs, the wage rates of these workers, and the unemployment rates of workers with different skills vary over the business cycle. The model does not rely on sticky wages. Devereux assembles panel data necessary for testing the model and applies appropriate econometric methods. The results provide strong support for a job assignment model in which employers assign more able workers to jobs during recessions. The paper is novel, has strong technical merits, is well-written, and has implications for policy and for macro/labor models in which wage cyclicality plays a key role.

Paul J. Devereux is assistant professor of economics at the University of California at Los Angeles. He received his Bachelor's degree from Trinity College in Dublin and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1997 and has been at UCLA since. Devereux is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for Study of Labor since 2003.

The prize committee also selected two runner-up papers: "Art of the Deal: The Merger Settlement Process at the Federal Trade Commission" by Malcolm B. Coate and Andrew N. Kleit (Vol. 70, No. 4, April 2004): and "Folk Economics" by Paul H. Rubin, (Vol. 70, No. 1, July 2003).

Kenneth G. Elzinga Distinguished Teaching Award

The Southern Economic Association has decided to annually honor one or more faculty members for outstanding contributions to economic instruction on their campus and beyond by conferring upon them the Kenneth G. Elzinga Distinguished Teaching award. The Award was instituted by the Board of Trustees of the Southern Economic Association in the fall of 2002.

Through a letter circulated early in October 2004 from the Board of Trustees of the Southern Economic Association, nominations were solicited from the heads of economics departments from each institution in the southern part of the United States. Nominations were received from universities and colleges that are teaching oriented and from schools that emphasize research. Department heads were encouraged to nominate a member of their department by submitting a letter to the Board spelling out the candidate's special attributes and accomplishments as an economic educator. A committee of the Board reviewed the nominations prior to the annual meeting of the organization in November 2004 and selected two individuals to honor.

Thomas J. Nechyba (Duke University) is an innovative economics educator who promoted and guided a restructuring of the undergraduate economics program at Duke University that is becoming a model for modern economics instruction. Professor Nechyba established a center inside the economics department, called Eco Teach that is responsible for all aspects of undergraduate economics education at Duke. This center oversees instruction in the Principles of Economics, trains graduate teaching assistants, provides tutors for students seeking help, and offers guidance on course selection for students considering an economics major. In addition. Professor Nechyba led a successful effort to revamp the content of the core undergraduate courses at Duke-Micro and Macro Principles of Economics, Intermediate Microeconomics, and Intermediate Macroeconomics--so that students have sufficient background in mathematics and statistics to understand the ongoing debates in the economics profession. He accomplished this feat without sacrificing instruction in economic intuition, economic and political institution, and public policy.

L. Wayne Plumly, Jr. (Valdosta State University) is an exemplary economics educator inside the classroom at Valdosta State University, and in his local community. He encourages students to enrich their understanding of economics by participating in service-learning and they have responded to his call by contributing over 30,000 hours of service. In addition, he has produced a series of highly regarded instructional videos for primary and secondary school students that introduce them to the fundamental insights central to economics. Professor Plumly has also promoted economic literacy across the state of Georgia by constructing effective materials for distance-learning in economics. His tireless effort to help students understand how a free enterprise system works has enriched the lives of countless students.