June

Eight candidates from the department of Economics were successful in being promoted this year. Two to the highest (E) level. The department wishes to congratulate all staff promoted this year.

  • Associate Professor Arthur Campbell was promoted to Professor.
  • Associate professor Paul Raschky was promoted to Professor.
  • Senior Lecturer Wayne Geerling was promoted to Associate Professor.
  • Lecturer Ayushi Bajaj was promoted to Senior Lecturer.
  • Lecturer Gordon Leslie was promoted to Senior Lecturer.
  • Lecturer Xiaodong Fan was promoted to Senior Lecturer.
  • Scholarly Teaching Fellow Dr Anupama Sethi was promoted to Lecturer.
  • Scholarly Teaching Fellow Dr Kris Ivanoski was promoted to Lecturer.

Professor Sascha Becker

Professor Becker gave zoom seminars at Harvard University on the 11th of March and at Northwestern University. on the 5th of May 2021.

He also gave his first face-to-face seminar in more than 12 months, at
QUT Brisbane on the 8th of April 2021.

Mita Bhattacharya

Senior lecturer Mita Bhattacharya presented a paper entitled 'Drivers of energy poverty in the ASEAN+6 region (Australia, the People's Republic of China, India, Japan, Korea and New Zealand): Evidence from nonparametric estimates across countries' (co-authored with John Inekwe and Eric Yan), at the WEAI conference, Virtual Platform, on 18 March.

In conjunction with the Faculty of Engineering, Dr Bhattacharya recently completed a report on the assessment of liquid fuel, chemicals, and porous material production from the end-of-life tyres for the Tyre Stewardship Australia.

The techno-economic work concludes that subject to the right policy setting, a 60 tonne per day processing plant will become cash-positive in four years with about 80 cents per litre oil production cost while avoiding these from going to landfill.

A dedicated supply chain needs to exist to make pyrolysis plants viable at defined locations. Also, defined regulatory policies in support of the pyrolysis process will facilitate the introduction of pyrolysis plants which are technically not complicated.

Giovanni Caggiano

Professor Caggiano is due to give talks at the following universities:

  • 12 August 2021 at Queensland University of Technology.
  • 27 August 2021 at Auckland University of Technology.
  • 1 September 2021 at Macquarie University.

He was also a speaker on the 8-9 April 2021 at the Applied Time Series Workshop, Federal Reserve of St Louis.

Lionel Frost

From the 26th of March to the 5th of April, Associate Professor Lionel Frost was part of a panel discussion on A new suburban ambition – the past and future of the Australian suburb, organised by MADA as part of Melbourne Design Week.

Gennadi Kazakevitch

Dr Kazakevitch now has a regular weekly (Monday) Economic News segment on Radio SBS (Russian). This is the link to the most recent one.

Kushneel Prakash

Dr Kushneel Prakash is the recipient of the 2020 Mollie Holman award for best doctoral thesis completed in the Faculty of Business and Economics. His thesis is entitled 'Three Essays on Subjective Wellbeing' and his supervisor is Professor Russell Smyth. Dr Prakash is now at the Melbourne Institute.

Ranjan Ray

Professor Ray presented a paper (written jointly with Parvin Singh) entitled "Regionally Disaggregated Estimates of Global Income Inequality with Evidence on Sensitivity to Purchasing Power Parity" at the World Congress of the International Economic Association (IEA). The IEA World Congress was scheduled to be held in Bali last year but was postponed to this year due to COVID-19 and is being held online. A link to the recording that has been uploaded on the IEA website. Parvin Singh did her master's degree in Economics from Monash. The full Conference programme is available on the IEA website.

Dr Udeni De Silva Perera recently completed her PhD thesis under the joint supervision of Professor Brett Inder (from EBS as her primary supervisor) and Professor Ranjan Ray (from Economics as her Associate supervisor). Her thesis is entitled, 'Essays On Child Growth In Sri Lanka: An Empirical Analysis Of The Effects Of Sectors, Interventions And Natural Disasters'. She received her PhD degree at a Convocation held in May that both Professor Inder and Professor Ray attended. Congratulations to Dr Udeni de Silva Perera.

Michelle Rendall

Senior lecturer Dr Michelle Rendall gave a seminar at Melbourne Institute on 14 May on 'Gender and Disadvantage in the Evolution of Test Score Gaps' (with Dr Jaai Parasnis and Dr Molly Paterson).

Yves Zenou

Professor Yves Zenou gave the keynote lecture at the 19th International Workshop on "Spatial Econometrics and Statistics" in Nantes, France (online) on 31May.

He also delivered a departmental seminar (online) at the University of Antwerp on 28 April and at the University of Ottawa on 26 March.

Lionel Frost

Associate Professor Lionel Frost was interviewed on ABC Radio Grandstand, as part of the AFL's Sir Doug Nicholls Round that recognises the contribution of Indigenous Australians. Dr Frost spoke about his research on the formation of the AFL's Racial Vilification Code.

He was also featured in Monash Lens, “How First Nations AFL players worked to fight racial vilification on and off the field.”

Wayne Geerling

Associate Professor Wayne Geerling spoke to Monash impact on the topic of using popular culture in teaching Economics.

Vinod Mishra

Associate Professor Vinod Mishra was featured in the SBS news story on 11 May regarding Australia’s Federal budget 2021.

He also gave his response to the Prime Minister's comments that opening international borders is not his immediate priority. On SBS on 12 May.

Further, a news story in Deutsche Welle (DW) Hindi edition quoted his views on the Australian prime minister's appeal that workers should return to offices now.

Ranjan Ray

Professor Ranjan Ray’s report on how the pandemic has affected some economies more than others has appeared in Monash Impact.

Yves Zenou

Professor Yves  Zenou was featured In Monash Impact on social networks and political opinions.

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  • In a recent paper called 'Geographic diversity in economic publishing' by Associate Professor Simon Angus, Associate Professor Kadir Atalay from University of Sydney, Associate Professor Jonathan Newton from Kyoto University and Senior Lecturer David Ubilava from University of Sydney, it is shown that Monash University has the highest concentration of editorial power in the 'rest of the world' meaning outside North America and Europe.

    The authors say: "The most powerful institution in the world outside of North America and Europe, Monash University, is only as powerful as the 32nd most powerful institution in North America, but would rank 8th if it were located in Europe."
  • On that note, we are happy to announce that Professor Sascha Becker has been appointed Associate Editor at the Journal of the European Association, from 1 Jan 2021.

    He was also elected to the Executive Board of the Asian & Australasian Society of Labour Economics.

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