UMass Boston

Economics Year in Review 2021-2022

Seminars Series

The department invited guest speakers to give talks on topics of interest to the department faculty as well as the broader university community. The department has a plan to bring in high profile speakers next year. 

See flyers and photos seminar presentations from last year here:  Seminar Series.

Honors dinner

We didn’t have our annual honors dinner this year, but we still recognized and honored outstanding students from this year’s graduating class virtually. The department gave out four named departmental awards to outstanding students and recognized students for distinction in economics. Winners of the Spitz Scholarship Award and Joanne P. Stewart Scholarship awards were also announced at this event..  See winners here:  Honors Award Winners

Faculty Updates

Faculty members have been busy with teaching, scholarly activities, and much more. See updates here.

SSL Awards Second Round of Seed Grants and Summer Funding for Anti-Racist Research.

Keren M. Horn, associate professor of economics, College of Liberal Arts, and Dania V. Francis, assistant professor of economics, College of Liberal Arts, are exploring the employment impacts of natural hazards, particularly for lower-income and minority individuals in their study titled, “Hurricanes, Floods, and Fires: What are the Employment Impacts of Climate Change?” Read more here.

UMass Boston Study Confirms Benefits of Unions

A recent research report titled “The Union Effect in Massachusetts,” part of a new series called Massachusetts Labor Matters, has been published by the Labor Resource Center (LRC) and the Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The series, sponsored by the Future of Work Initiative, explores labor and working-class life in the state of Massachusetts between 2010 and 2017. 

Written by professors of economics Randy Albelda and Michael Carr, and Brian Fitzpatrick ’19, who graduated with an MA in economics from UMass Boston, the inaugural issue analyzes the “union wage effect,” or the difference between the wages, earnings, and benefits in union and non-union jobs.