Advancing Economics, Transforming Lives

January 2009

From the Department Chair

To our alumni and friends:

In the old days, State of Michigan automobile license plates bore the expression, “Winter Water Wonderland.”  These days, many of us are thinking “Whitewater Wonderland.”  We’ve had some flooding, but mostly, “whitewater” is a metaphor for the global economic turmoil that has surrounded our state as the automobile headquarters of the world in a time when people are not buying cars.  The “wonder” is about what will happen next! 

In these whitewater times, we are managing to stay afloat because the skills we build in our students and the types of studies we implement are increasingly needed to help understand our complex and volatile economic systems.  Thanks to our alumni network and international reputation, we are receiving gifts and contracts that offset some of the loss of state funding that has hit MSU and nearly every other public university in the country.  We are still growing, riding the crest of each wave, even as other programs in our discipline around the country seem to be evaporating.  It is a challenge that our excellent faculty, staff, and friends help us continue to meet. 

Our reputation for quality has helped us recruit some outstanding new faculty.  It was just announced that recently hired faculty member Jinhua Zhao and co-author Larry Karp won an international research paper competition sponsored by the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements for their paper, “A Proposal for the Design of the Successor to the Kyoto Protocol.”  We maintain our relevance by working on pressing issues of high importance to global society. 

If you pay taxes in the US and want to join others who are helping to sustain us, the new Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 provides for a one-step option to make a lifetime gift of an IRA asset to our department.  If a person is at least 70½ years of age, he/she may direct a distribution from an IRA directly to charity, with no tax consequences.  This remains in effect for the 2008 and 2009, and the transfer must not exceed $100,000 per year.  MSU may accept such gifts.  For more information, contact Senior Director of Development Sue Woodard – 517-355-0284, email woodards@msu.edu.

I hope you enjoy the latest issue of Advancing Economics.  Please let us know what you think.  The feedback so far has been very positive, and people seem to really enjoy the alumni updates.  Please share with us what you’ve been doing, so we can tell your old friends. 

Sincerely

Steve Hanson
Professor and Department Chair
Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics