Research Fellow Position at QUB

Applications are sought for a research fellow to work on a project on the determinants and consequences of fertility (comparing low and middle income countries with those in a historical context - early 20th century Ireland).

Applicants are expected to hold or be about to obtain a PhD in economics, demography, or a related discipline. Candidates with experience in development economics, economic history, and/or demography are especially welcome.

The successful candidate will be based at Queen’s Management School, working with the Centre for Health Research at the Management School (CHaRMS) and the Centre for Economic History (QUECH). 

This is a 12 month position, with the deadline for applications Monday 6^th February. 

Examples of the type of research the position will involve include:

Delaney, L., McGovern, M.E., Smith, J.P., 2011. From Angela’s Ashes to the Celtic Tiger: Early Life Conditions and Adult Health in Ireland. Journal of Health Economics 30, 1–10.

Fernihough, A., McGovern, M.E., 2014. Do Fertility Transitions Influence Infant Mortality Declines? Evidence from Early Modern Germany. Journal of Population Economics 27, 1145–1163.

Informal questions can be directed to m.mcgovern@qub.ac.uk, further details of the position and how to apply are available here:

https://hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrecruitment/wrd/run/ETREC107GF.open?VACANCY_ID=0656057YfM&WVID=6273090Lgx&LANG=USA

Lecturer and Senior Lecturer Positions at Stirling

Stirling Management School (which includes Economics) is hiring again, this time a significant number of lecturer and senior lecturer positions. Some of you may be interested in applying for roles in Economics. I am currently Professor of Economics there and developing a research group at the interface of economics and psychology. Stirling is a good working environment in every sense and Economics is well-connected to the wider SGPE and SIRE structures in Scotland. The link with details is here 

Professorships in Stirling Management School

Stirling Management school, which among other things, houses the Division of Economics is advertising multiple Professorships. These are not tied to particular areas. Details are here People from the types of areas discussed on this blog who are thinking of applying should feel free to get in touch. Relevant to research topics discussed here, as well as me, Nic Hanley and his team also work here and there is a good environment for microeconometric-work at the intersection of psychology. There has been a lot of recent activity around hiring new lecturers and Professors and my own experience here has been very positive. In Economics, we are part of the SIRE and SGPE initiatives in Scotland, which facilitates Scottish wide graduate training and research.

Revenue Internships

See notice below. Would definitely recommend this for people looking for excellent (albeit not well paid) work experience applying statistics and economics in a policy environment.


Revenue is looking for recent graduates with economic or statistical skills to work in the Research and Analytics' Branch for 6 months under the FAS work placement programme.

Applications forms are available on the Revenue website:
http://www.revenue.ie/en/about/careers/fas-work-placement/index.html
The jobs are advertised on the FAS website: http://jobseeker.fas.ie/
(search for "economics research assistant" or "statistics research
assistant").

The deadline for the economics position is the 8th of April 2011 and the
deadline for the statistics position is the 15th April 2011.

Contact: Keith Walsh (keithw@revenue.ie; 01 4251417)

PFL Project is Hiring

(Via Dr. Orla Doyle)

The UCD Geary Institute is seeking to hire two research assistants for a 2-year period to be part of the evaluation of the Preparing for Life early childhood intervention team.

The deadline is March 14th 2011 and applicants may apply through the website below (full details there)

http://www.ucd.ie/hr/jobvacancies/

The Future of American Jobs

This is the first of two conferences organised by the Hamilton Project and the Center for American Progress. This conference took place on April 30th; it addressed the implications of the competitive global economy and rapid technological change for the challenge of creating high-paying jobs in the United States. A link to the conference website including a full event video is available here. The conference programme is outlined below.

8:30 a.m. - 8:50 a.m. Opening Remarks
John Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for American Progress
Robert E. Rubin, Co-Chair, Council on Foreign Relations

8:50 a.m. - 9:15 a.m. The State of the U.S. Labor Market
David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

9:15 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. Economic Growth and Job Creation
Alan Auerbach, Professor of Economics, University of California Berkley
Michael Greenstone, Director, The Hamilton Project; Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Alan Krueger, Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, Treasury Department
John van Reenen, Director, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics

Moderated by:
Chrystia Freeland, Global Editor-at-Large, Reuters

10:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. The American Worker
Ron Blackwell, Chief Economist, AFL-CIO
Heather Boushey, Senior Economist, Center for American Progress
Larry Katz, Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Cecilia Rouse, President's Council of Economic Advisers

Moderated by:
Greg Ip, U.S. Economics Editor, The Economist

12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Closing Session
Michael Bloomberg, Mayor, New York City
Lawrence H. Summers, Director, National Economic Council

Moderated by:
Charlie Rose, Host, Charlie Rose

Jobs for PhD Economists

The always excellent VOX has this indispensable gem for those coming close to submitting
link here

To help grow the next generation of economists, VoxEU.org has teamed with walras.org to form the world’s largest database of job openings for PhD economists. In addition to this comprehensive database of nearly all job openings for PhDs in economics and related fields, our partner walras.org also offers a free online application system allowing the exchange of all application documents and reference letters.

Research Assistant Post Available: UCD Food Risk Perception Project

From an email from Aine McConnon. Attachment not on blogpost but click through to the link and go to external vacancies and all details are there.

Please find attached a job advertisement for a Research Assistant on a new EU project investigating perceptions and communication of food risk/benefit issues  across Europe (see also http://www.ucd.ie/hr/jobvacancies/).  This post also offers the opportunity of a PhD project.

Please circulate to suitable candidates/other relevant mailing lists.

Best wishes,
Aine


Aine McConnon, PhD
School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Science,
Woodview House, Belfield,
University College Dublin
Dublin 4

Two Teaching Assistant Posts - University of Limerick

(Via Head of School Anthony Leddin) 

Two vacancies for teaching assistants in the Department of Economics which commence in September 2010.  

The University of Limerick (UL) with over 11,000 students and 1,300 staff is a young, energetic and enterprising University with a proud record of innovation in education and excellence in research and scholarship. UL is situated on a superb riverside campus of over 130 hectares with the River Shannon as a unifying focal point. Outstanding recreational, cultural and sporting facilities further enhance this exceptional learning and working environment

Title of Post: Teaching Assistant in Economics (2 posts)

Details can be found at:-  Web:  http://www.ul.ie

I would be grateful if you could circulate this information and if you or your colleagues can recommend any potential applicants for these posts we will be delighted to hear from them.

Let Them Eat Lunch

Whatever the advantage of being over-25 in the labour market is due to (my suggestion is having a steady job before more recent graduates entered the more perturbed market, rather than there being an advantage to more experience), the fact is that the advantage exists. Constantin Gurdgiev has done extensive analysis on the QNHS, and demonstrates clearly that there is also an advantage in being more highly educated. Among plenty of observations, Constantin points out the dramatic decline in the Irish labour force: "Overall, we are now back in Q2 2004 when it comes to employment figures." Constantin also says that "contrary to all the talk about 'bottoming out', the latest fall-off in unemployment recorded in Q4 2009 is seasonally consistent with normal patterns, implying that in all likelihood, unemployment figures will remain on the rise from Q1 2010 on." This is in line with Karl Whelan's comment (previously flagged) that "...overall, the picture has changed somewhat from one in which the unemployment rate appeared to be flattening to one where it still seems to be rising."

Statements like "this is no country for young men" may seem trite, but this is indeed where efforts need to be focused. Overall, the evidence indicates that there is a need to address the lack of opportunities for individuals with lower levels of education, and for those under 25 years of age (in particular, men). Gerard O'Neill is one of the few commentators (that I am aware of) who has put forward a concrete suggestion: national service. The Govt. policies in this arena have been flagged by me before: WPP and Employment Subsidy Scheme, Revised WPP, New Activation Fund and changes to the jobseeker’s allowance and supplementary welfare allowance schemes. The IBEC scheme was also flagged.

There has been a strategy document from IDA Ireland (105,000 new jobs) and an innovation taskforce strategy proposal (115,000 to 200,000 jobs). We also had the Smart Economy document from last year (250,000 jobs) and the green energy strategy document (80,000 jobs). However, these documents may be cold comfort for the 13.4% who are currently unemployed. Many of those unemployed individuals (accounting for almost 1 in 7 of the labour force) may not have the levels of education required for many of the jobs envisioned in those documents. Areas of educational qualification (of the currently unemployed) is another issue.

There is some solace to be taken from seeing Irish economists warn about the dangers of deadweight loss and displacement, that are associated with job creation plans. That is, if money ever became available for a plan, it might be spent well. Of course, the dearth of suggestions (more widely) is likely a function of the fiscal pressures at play in Ireland (rather than concerns about deadweight loss and displacement). If the macroeconomic management of fiscal adjustment is not executed with care, then the unemployment rate (which still seems to be rising, as noted above) would be at greater risk of approaching the peak level last seen in the 1980's (17.1% in 1985). In a note available here, I offer a personal view on why it is necessary to avoid a re-run of the 1980's. Unfortunately, the Tallaght Strategy solution was introduced years after it was needed; and years after the onset of high unemployment and emigration. Philip Lane's paper on fiscal strategy is a must-read for anyone who wants to put forward suggestions in the "national interest".

The obvious question for labour economists is then as follows: given the limits associated with the current fiscal adjustment, what can be done for unemployed individuals with lower levels of education, and those under 25 years of age? Richard Thaler, professor of economics and behavioral science at the University of Chicago, has recently addressed this type of problem: in this NYT Economic View column. The idea that Thaler proposes is described as a paid lunch; "paid lunches are essentially ways to reallocate inefficiently used resources that haven’t been reallocated because of, well, sheer laziness." In the NYT column, Thaler focuses on "reallocating the way we use the radio spectrum now devoted to over-the-air television broadcasting". Thaler is planning to include more paid lunches in his future columns. The question I have is whether there any novel resource reallocations that could have implications for reducing unemployment? To let them eat lunch, so to speak.

Some Links

1. Do we need a "jobs czar"?

2. Chris Horn on the Irish Economy

3. The L.A. Times on the Irish Economy

4. The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE)

5. Seeking Alpha on last Thursday's U.S. jobless claims report; the story features some graphs from Blytic.com that are worth checking out

6. The Smart Data Collective: The Data-Driven Enterprise Community; their blog recently featured a critical review of McKinsey's guide to behavioural economics for marketers

7. Intelligent Enterprise: "Possibly the most important factor influencing the spread of predictive analytics is the growing popularity of R... Vendors, including IBM SPSS, Information Builders and SAS are incorporating R." More here.

A Few More Links

1. Do happy people have fewer heart attacks?

2. Obama advisor Austan Goolsbee on the importance of "the first job after graduation": NYT 2006

3. This week's U.S. jobs measure: payroll tax exemption, and tax breaks for capital expenditure

4. CIRGE: the Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education

5. Panel Conditioning and Attrition in the AP-Yahoo! News Election Panel Study

6. Tomorrow's edition of The Economist runs with the following lead-story: "The Data Deluge - and How To Handle It"

7. Job Opportunities at Yahoo!: the tech giant recently advertised for Ph.D. graduates in Microeconomics

The Obama Jobs Summit

In yesterday's NY Times it was reported that there are six key areas for discussion at this Thursday's Obama Jobs Summit. These areas are: innovative and green jobs, small business incentives, long-range infrastructure plans, encouraging export-oriented businesses, government and private sector partnerships and training for the jobs of the future. Besides members of the business community, attendees will include several economists, including Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, and Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University.

QNHS Employment Figures for Ireland

Figures released today in the Central Statistics Office's Quarterly National Household Survey show that the unemployment rate increased from 4.9% to 10.2% over the last year.

Nine out of the fourteen NACE sectors showed a decrease in employment over
the year. The largest decline in employment was recorded in the Construction
sector where the numbers employed fell by 72,200 (-28.6%) over the year.

Which NACE sectors had an increase in employment over the year?
(i) Information and Communication: 1,000 more employed
(ii) Financial, Insurance and Real Estate: 200 more employed
(iii) Public administration and defence; compulsory social security: 3,000 more employed
(iv) Education: 10,600 more employed
(v) Human health and social work activities: 2,100 more employed

However, Brendan Walsh has noted that while the QHNS is based on more economically meaningful (ILO) definitions (compared to the Live Register), it too needs to be handled with care. (For example, anyone working for pay or profit for one hour a week or more is classified as employed.)

Jobs That Are Hard to Fill, Right Now

Some jobs are currently hard to fill in the United States, according to the New York Times (earlier this week):

Welder is one, employers report. Critical care nurse is another. Electrical lineman is yet another, particularly those skilled in stringing high-voltage wires across the landscape. Special education teachers are in demand. So are geotechnical engineers, trained in geology as well as engineering, a combination sought for oil field work. Respiratory therapists, who help the ill breathe, are not easily found, at least not by the Permanente Medical Group, which employs more than 30,000 health professionals. And with infrastructure spending now on the rise, civil engineers are in demand to supervise the work.