Center for Research in Emerging Economies

Overview of the Research Center

The Center for Research in Emerging Economies, or CREE, (formerly Centre for Asia Pacific Business Research, Economics and Innovation) aims to serve the business and academic communities by bringing together researchers and industry leaders to conduct high quality research on current and emerging issues globally. It aims to facilitate constructive dialogues to have a significant impact in the economic and business advancement. In addition to engaging in research activities, CREE is also expected to serve as a discussion forum for advancement of business research, economics, and innovations in this region.

Center Objectives 

• Act as a think tank providing advices and ideas to researchers, industry leaders and experts, laying the foundation to build a world-class reputation of the center in the areas of economics, business, and innovation studies.  
• To promote a multidisciplinary research approach that tries to integrate a plethora of areas of business research.
• Engaging current and future leaders from corporate and academia to gather and enhance collaboration through high quality research, programs of executive education and workshops as well as professional and student exchange. 

The Center for Research in Emerging Economies hosted a galaxy of globally renowned academicians in its Inspiration Lecture Series. In Fall 2020, the Center organized 17 Inspiration Lectures on a diverse array of topics, ranging from social networks and productivity to universal basic income, from optimum urban reopening policy post-COVID-19 to the increasing ubiquity of artificial intelligence across multiple domains, from comprehending pillars of responsible business to relating our present financial decision-making with our future self.

The Fall 2020 Inspiration lectures had three main focus areas:

1. Understanding trends and designing policies in market economy and business
2. Growth and development policies in emerging economies
3. Knowledge management and innovation

The speakers in the Series were from top global institutions such as London School of Economics, San Francisco State University, Kings College London, UCLA, Northeastern University, University of Virginia, MIT, UT Dallas, University of Washington, Georgia State University, UC Berkeley, Berlin School of Economics and law, University of Maryland, University of Calgary, UC Berkeley, Southern Methodist University and University of Warwick.

To learn more about the lectures, please visit the “past events” in the link: https://jgu.edu.in/jgbs/research/cree/

The Inspiration Series will resume in Spring 2021, with new speakers. Information about the lectures will be updated here.

Thursday, October 22, 7:00PM-8:00PM 

Innovation, Fintech, and Mobile Economics research

Dr. Alex R. Horenstein

Assistant Professor of Economics

University of Miami

In this talk, Dr. Horenstein will review the last centuries of economic development, the latest trends in Fintech, and the future of experimental economics.

Dr. Alex Horenstein is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Miami, Herbert Business School. He obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from Arizona State University. His current research interests include financial economics, econometrics, and experimental and behavioral economics. He is a frequent media contributor (e.g., CNN en Español, Bloomberg, Financial Times). Among other outlets, Dr. Horenstein has published in Econometrica, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of the European Economic Association, and Management Science.

Moderator:  Dr. Anand Sharma, Assistant Professor (Economics), JGBS

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Thursday, October 26, 10.00 AM-11.30 AM

The Challenges and Future of Researching Wisdom

Professor (Honorary) Dr David Rooney 

University of Macquarie, Australia 

David Rooney is Professor (Honorary) of Management and Organisation Studies at Macquarie Business School, Macquarie University. He has researched, taught and published widely in the areas of wisdom, leadership, the knowledge-based economy, and creative industries. His books include Wisdom and Management in the Knowledge Economy, Public Policy in the Knowledge-Based Economy, the Handbook on the Knowledge Economy, and Knowledge Policy: Challenges for the Twenty-First Century. Professor Rooney has published in many leading academic journals including The Leadership Quarterly, Public Administration Review, Human Relations, Academy of Management Learning and Education, and the Journal of Business Ethics. Before entering academia, he worked in the music and insurance industries.

Moderator:  Dr. Sudip Patra, Assistant Professor, Economics, JGBS

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Monday, October 26, 8:30PM-9:30PM

Increasing the Cost of Informal Workers: Evidence from Mexico

Dr. Brenda Samaniego de la Parra

Assistant Professor of Economics

University of California, Santa Cruz

Abstract:
Firms use informal work arrangements to sidestep various labor regulations and taxes. We estimate the effects of increasing the cost of informal employment on formal firms’ and workers’ outcomes. We create a novel dataset combining administrative records and household surveys, and exploit exogenous variation in the cost of informal jobs generated by over 600,000 random work-site inspections in Mexico.  Increasing the cost of informal jobs  leads to persistently lower employment growth, lower formal job creation, and higher formal and informal job destruction. For informal workers, inspections increase the probability of being formalized at the inspected firm, but also increase the probability of dissolving the informal match. Transitioning to a formal job due to an inspection increases the probability of being poached to a new, formal job and increases future wages. Our empirical findings are consistent with potential employers using formality status as a signal for workers’ productivity.

About the Speaker:
Brenda Samaniego de la Parra is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research analyzes how different work arrangements between workers and firms arise, and their implications for the aggregate economy. She has published research in the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) World of Work and Global Employment Trends reports and has consulted for the ILO and the World Bank. Before joining the Economics Department at UC Santa Cruz, she was a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and served as Special Projects Deputy Director for the National Banking and Securities Commission in Mexico. She received a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago, a B.S. in economics and a B.S. in political science from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM).

 Moderator:  Dr. Chitrakalpa Sen, Associate Professor (Economics), JGBS

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Wednesday, November 4, 6:30PM-8:00PM

Can Interest Rate Factors Explain Exchange Rate Fluctuations?

Dr. Julieta Yung

Assistant Professor (Economics)

Bates College

Abstract:
The level, slope, and curvature of the yield curve reflect time variation in investors’ risk premia and are known predictors of excess bond returns and economic activity. In this work, I find that interest rate factors help explain exchange rate fluctuations in and out of sample, particularly at longer horizons, and yield profitable currency portfolios relative to standard carry trade strategies.

About the Speaker:
Julieta Yung joined Bates College as an Assistant Professor of Economics in 2017 and has served on the Consensus Economic Forecasting Commission for the state of Maine since 2019. She works as an ad-hoc consultant for the Bank of England and the Bilateral Assistance and Capacity Building for Central Banks Program. Professor Yung’s primary research fields are macro-finance and asset pricing, with a focus on modeling yield curves, global networks, and exchange rates. Prior to Bates, she worked as a Research Economist in the International group of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Professor Yung holds an M.A and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Notre Dame.

Moderator:  Dr. Chitrakalpa Sen, Associate Professor (Economics), JGBS

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Tuesday, November 10, 6:30PM-8:00PM

Optimal public debt indexation in advanced economies

Dr. Patricia Gomez-Gonzalez

Assistant Professor (Economics)

Fordham University

Abstract:
Advanced economies issue part of their public debt linked to inflation. For example, the UK issues 24% of its public debt in this manner; the US issues 10%. This paper studies optimal public debt management when governments can issue IL debt and nominal debt and aim to minimize tax distortions, debt investors are risk-neutral, and nominal debt carries a convenience premium. The optimal IL debt share is decreasing in the convenience premium and in the correlation between real government spending and inflation and is increasing in the variance of inflation and average inflation. Data between 1995 and 2018 for the 14 advanced economies that issue IL debt exhibit correlations in line with the model’s findings. In particular, the correlation between the IL debt share and the correlation between government spending and inflation equals -59.4%, which is consistent with IL debt acting as a hedge in the government’s budget constraint. The next step of this work-in-progress is to study how the results change if debt investors are risk-averse.

About the Speaker:
Dr. Patricia Gomez-Gonzalez is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at Fordham University and a fellow at the Rimini Center for Economic Analysis. Her research lies in the areas of international finance and macroeconomics. In particular, she studies public debt structure, with an emphasis on inflation-linked public debt, and sovereign debt crises. Some of her work has focus on monetary policy in open economies.

Moderator:  Dr. Suganya Balakumar, Lecturer (Economics), JGBS

Inspiration Lecture Series

• 8 December, The economic and social impacts of Covid-19, Dr. Abhinay Muthoo, Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, University of Warwick.
• 2 December, Is Tourism Good for Locals? Evidence from Barcelona, Dr. Rocio Madera, Assistant Professor (Economics), Southern Methodist University. 
• 30 November, Universal Basic Income in Post-Pandemic Poor Countries, Dr. Pranab Bardhan, Professor of Graduate School at the Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley
• 25 November, Universities and Regional Growth, Dr. Alex Whalley, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Calgary.
• 19 November, How to Publish in Top Journals, Dr. Amna Kirmani, Editor, Journal of Consumer Research, Ralph J. Tyser Professor of Marketing, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. 
• 12 November, Supply Chain Viability: lessons from and thinking beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, Prof. Dr. Dr. habil. Dmitry Ivanov, Professor of Supply Chain and Operations Management, Department of Business and Economics, Berlin School of Economics and Law
• 6 November, 2020 – Designing Optimal Reopening Policies during the COVID-19 Pandemic, Dr. Abhishek Nagaraj, Assistant Professor, Management of Organizations, Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley.
• 2 November, 2020 – How Will the AI Genie Behave? Dr. Arun Rai, Regents’ Professor of the University System of Georgia, Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University. 
• 29 October, 2020 – Versioning: A Tool for Information Dissemination, Dr. Atanu Lahiri, Associate Professor, Information Systems, Jindal School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas and Dr. Debabrata Dey, Marion B. Ingersoll Professor of Information Systems, Foster School of Business, University of Washington.
• 15 October, 2020 – Supply Chain Resiliency and the Need for Stress-Tests, Dr. David Simchi-Levi, Professor of Engineering Systems, Director of the MIT Data Science Lab. 
• 12 October, 2020 – The Power of And: Responsible Business without Tradeoffs, Dr. R. Edward Freeman, University Professor, Olsson Professor, Academic Director of the Institute for Business in Society, University of Virginia, Darden School of Business. 
• 7 October, 2020 – Transitory Income Changes and Consumption Smoothing: The PIH holds, Dr. Silvia Prina, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Northeastern University. 
• 30 September, 2020 – Connecting with our future selves, Dr. Hal Hershfield, Associate Professor of Marketing, Behavioral Decision Making, and Psychology, UCLA Anderson School of Management.
• 18 September, 2020 – The Ties That Bind Us: Social Networks and Productivity in the Factory, Dr. Amrita Dhillon, Professor of Political Economy, King’s College, London.
• 16 September, 2020 – The Visible Host: Does race guide Airbnb rental rates in San Francisco?, Dr. Venoo Kakar, Associate Professor of Economics, San Francisco State University.
• 14 September, 2020 – On the Design of a Safety Net for the Poor, Dr. Maitreesh Ghatak, Professor of Economics, London School of Economics.
• 27 August, 2020 – Injuries of Love and Matchmaking: Unpacking the Indian Marriage Market, Dr. Parul Bhandari, JGBS.

Pandemic Lecture Series

• 25 April, 2020 COVIDCRISIS and the World: What Lies Ahead?
• 9 May, 2020 How has India’s social innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem responded to Covid-19?
• 16 May, 2020 Supply Chain Super-Adaptiveness
•  23 May, 2020 Economic links between China and the rest of the world in a post Corona world
• 28 May, 2020; Entrepreneurship as a Skill: The 8 Factors that Create an Entrepreneurial Mindset
• 4 June, 2020;Consumer Behaviour Post-Covid: 5 Ways Through Which We’ll Use Products, Services and Brands
• 12 June, 2020, Logistics and Supply Chain issues in Australia during Covid19
• 12 June, 2020, Bio-diversity—Economy relations and the Pandemic.
• 13 June 2020, Urban Mobility Post Lock-down
• 20 June 2020, Disaster Governance – Risk Reduction and Recovery
• 24 Jun, 2020, Decision making under uncertainty
• 25 Jun, 2020, Mundaneness of Crisis and Vulnerability

Blog link: https://capbrei.blogspot.com/