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Center's Annual Report Highlights Achievements, Research
Our 2022-23 annual report is more than a digest of our past year — in its pages you'll find research articles written for all to appreciate. Check out the PURCE report to learn about faculty awards, our student programs, and the places we've been and the things we've done to further our mission.
Moore Awarded KATE for Excellence in Course Delivery
PURCE faculty affiliate Tim Moore has been awarded the 2022-23 KATE Teaching Excellence Award for Excellence in Course Delivery. The Rising Star Associate Professor of Economics was honored for his delivery of ECON 362 Health Economics.
Both recent students and alumni from this course highlight Moore’s ability to create an environment where students succeed. His course emphasizes interaction and student participation using the Socratic method of “cold calling” students. While that can be intimidating, students in his course appreciate that Moore learns their names quickly and, as one course alumnus said, “If I or someone else gave a wrong answer, he would build off that answer, highlighting the ideas they got right.”
A unique addition to the summer online version of his course is the option of 15-minute oral exams. Students overwhelmingly cited this exam format as contributing to a deeper understanding of course material. In-class participation exercises and policy summaries reinforce course content and further create an engaging, inclusive experience.
The KATE award provides $8,000 and an additional $4,500 in a professional expenditure account.
More Than a Class: Econ Scholars Course is a Conversation
PURCE's unique workshop-style class, the Economic Scholars Program, exemplifies the Daniels School’s dedication to close study of transformative texts written by great thinkers and encourages thoughtful, in-depth discussion of economics topics.
Read about the fall 2022 Econ Scholars course, which focused on law and crime in society.
Econ Center Reaches Milestone: 10 Years of Sense-Making Research
Our story starts with a vision. This year, 2023, the Purdue University Research Center celebrates its 10th anniversary and the deepening of its vision.
Read about the center's beginnings and where PURCE is now in its evolution.
PURCE Annual Report
In 2021-2022, PURCE saw the retirement of a founding faculty member; welcomed five new, illustrious researchers to its affiliate roster; had more than 40 peer-reviewed research papers accepted at top academic journals; and much more.
Read about our center's efforts and accomplishments in our 2021-22 annual report.
In service of its mission to share good data and information with decision makers, the Krannert School’s Purdue University Research Center in Economics (PURCE) again presented research findings at the Indiana Statehouse.
PURCE and Purdue’s Government Relations and Public Affairs office collaborated in offering the three information sessions during the 2022 Indiana General Assembly. Committee members, elected officials, state department employees and other interested parties were invited to sessions on resignations, retirements, and the labor shortage; bullying in schools; and cryptocurrencies and the future of money.
“There are a lot of voices offering opinions about government policy, but facts are often in short supply,” says Kozuch Director of PURCE Kevin Mumford, an associate professor of economics at Krannert.
“We are bridging the gap by hosting these information sessions at the Statehouse and then making professors available for direct follow-up with government leaders,” he says. “The center seeks to become a go-to resource for legislators and executive branch leaders wanting reputable and unbiased empirical evidence on specific government policies.”
Read the full story in the Spring 2022 issue of Krannert Magazine.
We are pleased to announce the addition of two new faculty affiliates to the Purdue University Research Center in Economics (PURCE). Professors Mario Crucini and Colin Sullivan joined us in August 2021, and the Krannert School of Management and PURCE are glad to welcome them to Purdue University.
Mario Crucini is professor and Semler Chair in the Department of Economics. He has studied business cycles across countries for more than three decades, and is excited about a new area of his research examining the growth and business cycle experiences of different locations within the United States.
Crucini, left, was most recently at Vanderbilt University, where he was a tenured professor and director of the Center for International Price Research. In addition to his work on business cycles, he has published important research on savings behavior, investment, exchange rates, tariffs, and U.S. monetary policy. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a senior fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and an associate editor of the Journal of Monetary Economics.
“Mario is one of the leading macroeconomists in the country,” says PURCE Kozuch Director Kevin Mumford. “He gives PURCE an increased ability to analyze the effects of important federal government policy changes and communicate with government and community leaders.”
Crucini earned his PhD in Economics at the University of Rochester. He taught at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, the Stern School of Business at New York University, and The Ohio State University.
Colin Sullivan is an assistant professor of economics who comes to Purdue with degrees from the University of Chicago, Harvard University, and the Wharton School, where he earned his PhD in Applied Economics. He most recently was a postdoctoral fellow in Stanford University’s economics department.
“Colin is an outstanding economist doing important policy work on discrimination, hiring practices, and organ transplant policy. We are fortunate to have him joining us,” Mumford says.
Sullivan’s research uses experiments and observational data to understand how markets work, and how to improve them. He focuses on matching markets, “where prices are not the only thing that determines who gets what,” Sullivan says. “For example, patients can't pay for organ donations in the U.S., which results in a shortage of organs for transplant. One branch of my research studies how to allocate this scarce supply of lifesaving organs.”
Sullivan, left, also designs experiments to understand what drives hiring discrimination and how to increase labor market access. He is working on a project to identify whether paternalism contributes to discrimination in hiring decisions.
Read a longer version of this story and learn more about professors Crucini and Sullivan.
PURCE faculty, research, and Economic Scholars Program students were featured prominently in this year's Krannert Alumni Conference, held virtually April 19-23, 2021. The conference's PURCE-sponsored Economics Track offered three sessions highlighting the center's courses, faculty, and research:
Dr. David Hummels, a PURCE faculty affiliate and the Dr. Samuel R. Allen Dean of Krannert, was joined by undergraduate students from his Economic Scholars Program class to discuss the Future of Work & Education. View their discussion.
PURCE Kozuch Director Dr. Kevin Mumford led a panel discussion on intergenerational justice. Many government programs make transfers from one generation to another, including Social Security, environmental policy, and deficit spending. How do intergenerational equity concerns relate to government borrowing and environmental policy? Watch the session on intergenerational justice.
Dr. Jillian Carr, Krannert Assistant Professor of Economics and a PURCE faculty affiliate, presented the latest research on offering college admissions tests for free to high school students. See Dr. Carr's presentation.
Each session was followed by a Q&A facilitated by Amber Watkins, Krannert's Director of Alumni Relations.
The Purdue University Research Center in Economics, in partnership with the Purdue Office of Government Relations, hosted a series of live Zoom faculty presentations and discussions during the Indiana General Assembly's 122nd legislative session.
The series built upon our 2020 in-person visits to the Indiana Statehouse for faculty research presentations. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we moved the events online. We also doubled the number of sessions.
PURCE invited select elected officials, staff of key government agencies, and other decision-makers to 50-minute virtual meetings on topics ranging from how COVID-19 has affected employment to broadband adoption in rural communities to state regulations of telemedicine visits.
We launched the six-part series in late January 2021 with a presentation by PURCE faculty affiliate and Krannert Assistant Professor of Economics Dr. Jillian Carr on offering the SAT admissions exam for free in Indiana high schools. This event drew state senators, members of the Indiana State Board of Education, and representatives from the Indiana Department of Education, the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, the Indiana School Boards Association, the Indiana Association of School Principals, and more.
These small group discussions accomplished many goals, including fulfilling PURCE's mission to share our data-driven, empirical research so it has an impact on the well-being of people and society. The series wrapped up in early April.
Each year, our annual report provides more than a digest of our accomplishments and goals. This booklet tells you who we are, where we've been, where we're going, and what's important to our research center.
Peruse our 2019-20 report here and find our 2020-21 annual report here.
Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management and the Purdue University Research Center in Economics (PURCE) offer a series of live webinars addressing various impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
Recent live events showcase faculty expertise on COVID-19’s effect on supply chains, small businesses, crime, the stock market, and more. Faculty also answer audience questions.
These webinars were recorded and are available to view here.
Kozuch Director of the Purdue University Research Center in Economics, Dr. Kevin Mumford, and Associate Professor of Economics Dr. Timothy Bond presented "The Causes and Consequences of Purdue Grade Inflation" during a campus town hall on January 29, 2020, hosted by the University Senate. Opening remarks were given by Provost Jay Akridge. Following the presentation, a discussion was moderated by university senate chair Cheryl Cooky.
Mumford and Bond's report explores the sources of grade inflation at the university and college level over a nine-year period, and is based on data provided to them by Purdue.
Their presentation and the discussion that followed were recorded and that recording is available here.
In November 2019 we welcomed to campus Dr. Keith Hall, who served as our monthly policy luncheon speaker in addition to meeting with economics students, faculty, and Purdue President Mitch Daniels.
Dr. Keith Hall has more than 25 years of public service, most recently as the Director of the Congressional Budget Office.
He also served as the Chief Economist and Director of Economics at the International Trade Commission (ITC), a senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, the thirteenth Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Chief Economist for the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, the Chief Economist for the Department of Commerce, a senior international economist for the ITC, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas, and an international economist at the Department of Treasury.
In those positions, he worked on a wide variety of topics, including labor market analysis and policy, economic conditions and measurement, macroeconomic analysis and forecasting, international economics and policy, and computational partial equilibrium modeling.
He is currently a Professor of Practice at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.
Dr. Hall earned his PhD and MS in economics from Krannert.
A large crowd of PURCE supporters gathered for the November 7 PURCE policy luncheon, "Government Deficits and Debt: Why They’re so Large and Why They Matter."
Dr. Lynne Kiesling departed PURCE in July 2019 after serving as the center’s associate director and a Krannert Visiting Associate Professor for two years, and is now the Co-Director of the Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics (IRLE), in the Department of Engineering & Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University.
During Kiesling's time at the center, she taught students ranging from freshman to master’s; helped launch the Economics Ideas Forum; initiated and taught the Economic Scholars Program; and spearheaded the development of a strategy for communicating the center’s policy-relevant research to audiences outside of academia.
Read the full story of Kiesling's time at PURCE and her departure.
The Purdue University Board of Trustees on August 2, 2019, ratified named faculty members, including PURCE Director Dr. Kevin Mumford.
Mumford was named the Kozuch Director of the Purdue University Research Center in Economics (PURCE), thanks to a donor's generosity. The donor is a Purdue alum and a longtime supporter of Krannert.
Purdue University Provost Jay T. Akridge presented Mumford with the honor at the Board of Trustees Academic and Student Affairs Committee meeting.
Read the university news report on the trustees meeting here.
Our second annual day-long Economic Ideas Forum brought together community, business and government leaders, students and faculty, and guest Dr. Doug Irwin for discussions on crucial economic topics.
The April 18, 2019, event began with PURCE donors and supporters gathering for a private lunch featuring a talk by Irwin, the John French Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College and the preeminent economic historian of U.S. trade and trade policy over the past 150 years.
Irwin then joined a small group of econ students, who had read his most recent book, "Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy" (University of Chicago Press, 2017), for a discussion. Irwin is known for his engaging speaking and teaching -- he has more than 25 years of teaching experience.
The Forum continued with an afternoon of PURCE faculty sessions in Krannert's Rawls Hall, bringing concerned guests into the classroom. Our Forums are free and open to all.
We capped the day with an evening fireside chat and Q&A in Stewart Center's Fowler Hall, featuring Irwin, David Hummels, the Dr. Samuel R. Allen Dean of the Krannert School of Management; and Krannert Associate Dean David Schoorman.
The three discussed trade policy and negotiations. The Fowler Hall event is available to view on Krannert's YouTube channel.
The Fowler Hall lecture was a part of Purdue’s Ideas Festival, the centerpiece of Purdue’s Giant Leaps Sesquicentennial Campaign, which is a series of events that connect world-renowned thought leaders and Purdue experts in a conversation on the most critical problems facing the world.
Our Forum was made possible by the generous support of the Hugh and Judy Pence family.
Krannert had the honor of welcoming to campus Princeton economists Dr. Anne Case and Nobel Laureate Sir Angus Deaton on March 26, 2019.
The husband and wife team participated in two Q&A sessions with Purdue faculty and staff moderated by Krannert Associate Professor of Economics and PURCE faculty affiliate Dr. Tim Moore, and also hosted an evening Fowler Hall lecture.
Case and Deaton write extensively on the connections between economic status and poor physical and mental health in America. Their research suggests that worsening labor market opportunities for less educated whites have caused several cumulative disadvantages for middle-aged people, such as worsened marriage and child outcomes as well as poor overall health.
They discussed these complex issues during the Q&As and also during the free, open to the public presentation in Stewart Center. "Inequality, Deaths of Despair, and the Future of Capitalism" was part of the University's Giant Leaps Series. Read coverage of that event here.
Seen here are, from left, Anne Case, PURCE Associate Director Lynne Kiesling, PURCE Director Kevin Mumford, and Angus Deaton.
