Value-added models (VAMs), also referred to as growth models, are used in education research and policy to estimate the impacts of districts, schools, and teachers on student outcomes. Read Cory Koedel's chapter to learn more about this topic: livehandbook.org/k-12-educati...
🚨Next TOPS🚨
➡️Friday, January 23 2pm ET (New York Time)
➡️"Standardizing the Measurement of Cigar Tax Rates in the United States"
➡️Guthrie Scoblic from @mizzouecon.bsky.social
👉Register: bit.ly/TOPS-Winter2026
The students were mentored by Dr. Alyssa Carlson as part of her Economics Research Experience for Undergraduates program funded by NSF. Throughout last summer and fall, students designed their own research questions, collected and cleaned data, and analyzed their results using econometrics methods.
Photo of each of the four students next to their research poster at Mizzou's Undergraduate Fall Research Day
Econ students, Hunter Helmke, Sam Hirner, Erikan Editi Ikoh, & Macy Monical, presented at MU’s Undergrad Fall Research Day🙌
Topics spanned climate change and agricultural production, agglomeration economies & income gains, housing affordability in the US, & free/reduced price lunch & HS attendance.
Photo of two faculty members at Mud Room Studio
Members of Graduate Women in Economics (GWE) ended the year painting pottery at the Mud Room Studio. It was a great chance for PhD students and faculty to connect outside of the classroom and take a break from the busy semester. economics.missouri.edu/news/gwe-tak...
More events to come this year!
CRES is offering a fully funded PhD opportunity in collaboration with the Department of Economics for an incoming student interested energy economics and energy policy. cres.missouri.edu/cres-graduat...
They discuss some of the consequences of grade inflation, like decreased student effort & costs to high-achieving students, & changes universities can make to curb grade inflation, like listing course avgs on transcripts & rewarding teachers for high standards
See: www.chronicle.com/article/the-...
Figure of increasing grades over time
In a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dr. Koedel and PhD student, Jeonghyun Kim, document rising college grades, despite declining indicators of pre-college academic preparation (like ACT/SAT scores) & widespread anecdotal evidence that students are spending less time studying 👇
Dr. Ziebarth offered valuable insights connecting past economic crises to modern-day challenges like the Great Recession & the COVID-19 pandemic.
Attendees also had the opportunity to ask questions, deepen their understanding of the historical event, & connect with one another.
He illustrated how devastating the economic collapse was for households, labor markets, and the banking system, and demonstrated how differences in policy between two demographically similar regions can produce wide variations in economic outcomes.
Photo of participants at the event
Dr. Ziebarth, a macroeconomist and economic historian, led an engaging discussion on the Great Depression for MU's Omicron Delta Epsilon (ODE)* student group, contextualizing its severity beyond what most textbooks convey.
*ODE is the International Honor Society in Economics.
The Steinburgs gifted $1 mil to a graduate fund in Kuhlman's honor, as a tribute & message:
"The impact of a class or a professor often isn’t recognized until years later. In my case, the combination of course content and the professor’s influence made a lasting difference in my professional life."
We're honored to receive such a meaningful gift from Richard & Robbie Steinburg in honor of the late Dr John Kuhlman
We look forward to continuing the tradition of excellence in the classroom & student mentorship beyond class for generations of students to come
economics.missouri.edu/news/mizzou-...
🚨TOMORROW🚨
➡️Friday, September 19 2pm ET
➡️"Historical Cigarette Prohibition, Cigarette Use, and Mortality"
➡️@rachelylfung.bsky.social from @mizzouecon.bsky.social
👉Register: bit.ly/TOPS-Summer2025
Parsons is Kemper Fellowship winner whose award-winning teaching of Economics 1014 is mission critical to the Department. His service as the Director of Undergraduate Studies has become a keystone of department administration. Parsons is a Mizzou alumni who joined the Department Faculty in 2014.
Kaplan joined the dept in 2013 as an econometrician. His research is in top field journals & his role as the Dir. of Doctoral Studies has been a key to the success of the program over recent years. Kaplan has advised several PhD students, now at large banks & in tenure-track jobs in China & the U.S.
Photo of Drs. Kaplan and Parsons
Congratulations to Dr. David Kaplan for being promoted to Professor of Economics, and to Dr. Eric Parsons for being promoted to Teaching Professor of Economics!
We thank them for their contributions to our department and celebrate this well-deserved promotion!🎉
Read more👇
Bravo to MU Econ PhD alums in playing a pivotal role on the world stage during the US & Republic of Korea trade negotiations, which culminated in an agreement at the end of July 2025.
Dr. Jung-Kwan Kim - PhD 2002 (1st from left) and Dr. Ji Young Choi -PhD 2005 (4th from left)
Asked about the importance of receiving the award, Zhang said: “I feel honored and grateful to receive the RSF dissertation grant. It has boosted my motivation for my dissertation research.”
She is one of the impressive awardees in 2025, see here: russellsage.org/news/fourth-...
Bravo!
Photo of Duan Zhang
Congrats, Duan Zhang, on being awarded the prestigious Dissertation Research Grant from the Russell Sage Foundation!🎉
Zhang's research examines the impact of job loss on crime using restricted microdata from MU's RDC, paired with mass layoffs and plant closures as a quasi-experiment.
Read more 👇
Science on Tap featuring Duan Zhang
When: Sept 18th @ 6pm
Where: I-Tap
What is Science on Tap?
It is a monthly event where early career researchers (graduate students and post-docs) present the latest scientific developments in their research.
Enjoyed the @socialimpactlab.bsky.social welcome dinner + #karaoke night for @mizzouecon.bsky.social graduate students and post-docs. Excited for the academic year ahead and for a great new cohort of students! #EconSky
When asked to describe his SREP summer experience, Sawyer replied that the program “introduced me to new research approaches, challenged me to problem-solve, and allowed me to make progress on work with real-world impact.”
He plans to present the findings during Show Me Research Week in the spring.
Over the summer, Sawyer worked with Dr. Koedel studying the financial and labor-market impacts of the California teacher pension plan.
The extension period allows Sawyer to continue that work and start studying the source(s) of teacher-reported increases in classroom disruptions in K-12.
Photo of Sawyer Burgess
Congratulations to Sawyer Burgess, a sophomore economics & statistics major, who was awarded funding extension under Mizzou’s Student Research Exposure Program!
He was 1 of only 10 students granted funding to continue their research for the 2025-2026 academic year. Bravo!
Read more⬇️
Image of Dr. Annemarie Schweirnert
Welcome Dr. Annemarie Schweinert to Mizzou!
Dr. Schweinert starts today as a remote postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Brittany Street. Together, they will work on topics related to the economics of crime and the criminal legal system.
Read more here: economics.missouri.edu/news/dr-anne...
Congrats to John Martin as he starts the next step of his career at Harvard after MU graduation SP2025!🎉
Read more about John's time as an undergrad student at Mizzou & his research career, which will continue with Dr. Gordon Hanson and Dr. Dani Rodrik:
economics.missouri.edu/news/undergr...
The CATO Institute highlights work by Dr. Mike Pesko on the role of cigarette taxes.
Read more here:
www.cato.org/research-bri...
cc: @mikepesko.bsky.social
Another successful start to a new semester!
We hope the returning faculty and students had an excellent first week of classes.
A big thank you and congratulations to our outgoing Department Chair, Dr. Jeff Milyo, and our incoming Department Chair, Dr. Zack Miller. 🙌
M-I-Z-Z-O-U 🐯
Just published in @jpube.bsky.social:
"The impact of economic opportunity on criminal behavior: Evidence from the fracking boom"
By @brittanystreet.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#econsky #publiceconomics
