Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Presidential Management Fellows

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management is currently seeking candidates for the Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) Program! This highly selective, rigorous leadership program recruits outstanding graduate students for a two-year developmental fellowship at various Federal Agencies.

Fellows Receive
  • Two-year paid fellowships
  • 80 hours of training each year
  • Competitive pay and benefits
  • Potential accelerated promotions

Apply between October 1-15, 2010!

Eligibility and application information is available at www.pmf.gov.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Department Seminar, Wednesday September 29

Wednesday, Ximing Wu (Texas A&M and a Visiting Fellow, Info-Metrics Institute)
will be presenting "Semiparametric Estimation of Production Functions with Shape Constraints" in the Kreeger Seminar Room between 12 and 1:15.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Job Opportunity

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration needs to quickly fill a position for a statistician. A recent graduate with training in statistics and knowledge of SAS or SPSS could be an excellent fit. A more detailed announcement is below.

Job Title: Statistician (Economics)

Department: Department Of Labor

Agency: Employment and Training Administration

Sub Agency: U.S. Department of Labor

Job Announcement Number: DE-10-ETA-247



SALARY RANGE:

$51,630.00 - $67,114.00 /year

OPEN PERIOD:

Wednesday, September 22, 2010 to Tuesday, September 28, 2010

SERIES & GRADE:

GS-1530-09/09

POSITION INFORMATION:

Full Time Permanent

PROMOTION POTENTIAL:

13

DUTY LOCATIONS:

1 vacancy(s) in one of the following locations: Washington DC Metro Area, DC

WHO MAY BE CONSIDERED:

Applications/resumes will be accepted (on-line via USAJOBS.com) from
United States citizens and nationals and from ICTAP Eligibles within
the local commuting area.

Please review the "How to Apply" tab for specific application
instructions. If you have trouble entering your resume into the
system you must contact USAJOBS helpdesk. If you have questions
regarding the vacancy please submit them to etavacancy@dol.gov



JOB SUMMARY:

Join the team! Begin a challenging career
with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), and you
will help shape the workforce of tomorrow. DOL
offers rewarding opportunities to contribute to
a noble mission; to serve and protect American
workers, to prepare them for new and better jobs,
and to ensure the safety and fairness of
American workplaces.

This position is located in the Employment and Training Administration (ETA), Office of Unemployment Insurance (OUI), Division of Performance Management (DPM), Data Analysis and Data Validation Team.

DPM is primarily responsible for developing, monitoring, analyzing, validating, and reporting on performance measures under the Government Performance and Results Act and UI Performs (the performance management system for the Unemployment Insurance program). The division also designs and delivers training for the quality assessment of benefit eligibility determinations and to conduct investigations to ensure accurate benefit payments, and oversees the development of automated systems for data collection of state UI data to assist with the federal oversight of the states' UI operations.

KEY REQUIREMENTS:

  • U.S. Citizenship.
  • Requires a probationary period if the requirement has not been met.
  • Appointment to this position may require a background investigation.




Duties

Additional Duty Location Info:

Washington DC Metro Area, DC

The incumbent's primary duties will include the following:

1. Gathers data on economic and/or programmatic characteristics affecting the UI program and other labor force data; makes comparisons of economic data; prepares narrative summaries and reports of findings, recommendations, and conclusions.

2. Performs methodological research and analysis to assure the quality and technical adequacy of data collected through the Benefit Accuracy Measurement (BAM) statistical survey and the UI required reports.

3. Retrieves, assembles, and tabulates data for use as part of input into larger studies. Prepares graphical displays of UI program data.

4. Selects, organizes, and evaluates materials and information from a variety of sources pertaining to unemployment, labor force, and/or state and national economic statistics.

5. Prepares segments of recurring reports and analyses on the accuracy of UI payments, state UI program performance, and data quality.

6. Identifies underlying trends and apparent discrepancies in data which affect UI payment accuracy and UI program performance; makes comparisons of unemployment, economic and/or labor force data and prepares reports on findings for referral to senior staff members.

7. Prepares special analyses and data summaries to meet the needs of the data users, explaining significance and limitations of data.

8. Prepares correspondence for inquiries related to assigned programs and provides detailed descriptions or analysis of scope, concepts, and limitations of data provided.




Qualifications and Evaluations

QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED:

Applicants must meet qualification, legal, and regulatory
requirements for the position by the closing date of this vacancy
announcement.

Applicants must have 52 weeks of specialized experience equivalent to
at least the next lower grade level, GS-7, in the Federal Service.

Specialized experience is experience in or directly related to the line of work of the position to be filled, and which has equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position.

Examples of specialized experience include data analysis skills, specifically identifying underlying trends and discrepancies in data, and the use of statistical tools, such as SPSS and SAS.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Department Seminar, Wednesday September 22

This Wednesday John Nye (George Mason) will be presenting his work on the persistence of seemingly irrational superstitions. The seminar is in Kreeger 101 and will run 12PM-1:15PM.

The research examines the belief among East Asian immigrants that children born in the Year of the Dragon are superior. The work documents both spikes in births in Dragon years and that children born in the Year of the Dragon are more educated than otherwise similar immigrants.

An abstract of the paper is below.

Abstract:

Why do seemingly irrational superstitions persist? We analyze the widely held belief among Asians that children born in the Year of the Dragon are superior. We use pooled cross section data from the U.S. Current Population Survey to show that Asian immigrants to the United States born in the 1976 year of the Dragon are more educated than comparable immigrants from non-Dragon years. In contrast, no such educational effect is noticeable for Dragon-year children in the general U.S. population. We also provide evidence that Asian mothers of Dragon year babies are more educated, richer, and slightly older than Asian mothers of non-Dragon year children. This suggests that belief in the greater superiority of Dragon-year children is self-fulfilling since the demographic characteristics associated with parents who are more willing and able to adjust their birthing strategies to have Dragon children are also correlated with greater investment in their human capital.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

BLS Career Opportunities

The Department of Labor
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Open House
Friday September 17th from 10am-3pm

2 Massachusetts Ave NE. Washington, DC 20212
For more information on employment with the BLS, please visit:
http://www.bls.gov/jobs


BLS will be holding a one day Open House on Friday September 17th. Topics to be discussed include:
BLS Mission – Who we are and what we do
Careers at BLS – Econ, Math, Statistics, IT
Federal Hiring Process

In addition, staff will be on hand to review and accept resumes, and offer advice for job seekers.


RSVP encouraged, but not required
OpenHouse@bls.gov.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Department Seminar, Wednesday September 15

Tomorrow (Wednesday, September 15), Eric Verhoogen of Columbia University will present his work studying the relationship between exports and wage premia for Mexican workers. Prof. Verhoogen's research addresses questions in development and trade and is part of a broader literature that is taking the study of trade beyond frictionless "neoclassical" models. An abstract of the paper is below.

All department seminars are held in Kreeger 101 from 12:00-1:15. Please join us for this exciting opportunity.


ABSTRACT

This paper draws on a new combination of employer-employee and plant-level data from Mexico to investigate the relationship between exports and wage premia, defined as wages above what workers would receive elsewhere in the labor market. We first use detailed information on individual workers' wage histories to decompose plant-level average wages into a component reflecting skill composition and a component reflecting wage premia. Our estimating procedure allows for changes in the return to ability and feedback from current idiosyncratic shocks to future mobility. We then use the peso devaluation of late 1994, which we argue generated an exogenous differential inducement to export within industries, to estimate the eect of export incentives on the two components. Comparing across plants within industries, we find that approximately two-thirds of the higher level of wages in larger, more productive plants is explained by higher levels of wage premia, and that nearly all of the differential within-industry wage change due to the export shock is explained by changes in wage premia. The findings argue against the hypothesis that sorting on individual ability is solely responsible for the well-documented correlation between exporting and wages.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Department of Economics MA Representative

The Department of Economics is looking for a MA student representative for the Department Council. Responsibilities include attending Department Council meetings (approximately one per month, Wednesday mornings). Let me know if you are interested.

National Economists Club on Campus!

This will be a great event!

Omicron Delta Epsilon,
The Economics Honor Society
The Economics Graduate Student Union
and
The Department of Economics
are pleased to host
The National Economists Club on Campus
(http://www.national-economists.org)

For a forum on the
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010
featuring
Mike Konczal, Fellow, Roosevelt Institute
Mark Calabira, Policy Scholar, Cato Institute

When: Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 6:00pm
Where: Capital Auditorium, Tenley Campus (4300 Nebraska Avenue, NW)
Light Refreshments Will Be Served

Welcome!

Welcome to the Resources for MA Students in Economics--the blog designed to update MA students at American University with both program informationand information about department and university events, internship and career opportunities, and other opportunities of interest to MA students. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments at reynolds@american.edu.

Kara Reynolds
MA Program Advisor