Applied Economics (APEC) Student Seminar and Skill Workshop Series

At the University of Minnesota

Description:

The Applied Economics Student Seminar Series presents applied economics research hosted by the University of Minnesota. Speakers are primarly current and former students of the graduate program for Applied Economics at Minnesota. Additionally, we feature other students in adjacent department of Economics, Business, Public Health, and Public Policy whose work has an applied focus. As such, it is a forum for early career researchers to get feedback on their work at varying stages. This includes preliminary results to polished job market papers. The APEC Student Seminar Series has a storied tradition within the department dating back to 2019 – providing community and comradery amongst the graduate student body.

How to Participate

The seminar is aimed at graduate students (M.S. and Ph.D.) in the Applied Economics department at the University of Minnesota. But, we kindly welcome attendance from students and faculty throughout the University in other departments (e.g., Economics, Public Policy, Business, etc.), as well as other visiting scholars and alumni.

Members of the Applied Economics department will recieve notification of upcoming speakers via department announcements. For those outside the department, please follow the latest announcements and news (housed on this website) for information on attendance.

The seminar is speaker slot with a 40 minute presentation, 10 minutes of disscusant commentary and 10 minutes of general Q/A. Questions can be respectfully asked throughout the presentation in a standard economics format. The seminar is offered both in-person and via online (viz., Zoom) attendance. The zoom link is a static url that will be sent out with announcements seperate of the posters. If you would like access to the link and do not receive departmental announcements, please reach out directly to the seminar organizer.

Speaker Schedule

Student Seminars and the Skill Series will occur at 11 AM - 12 PM Central Time on Wednesdays in Ruttan 119 and via Zoom. Please note that due to schedule conflicts by the speakers, some presentions may be slightly before or after this time or in a different room.

For further details on each event, in the ‘Agenda’ view, simply click on the event and a dropdown should appear displaying information on the presenter, the topic, and the zoom link. If you don’t want to miss any of the event, be sure to sync this calendar with your personal google calendar (Click the + Google Calendar at the bottom).

2024 Fall Seminar Schedule

Speaker	Affiliation	Date	Title	Link to Poster
Ling Yao	Applied Economics, UMN	Sept. 4th	Agricultural Mechanization and Structural Transformation	Poster
Lindsey Novak	Reed College	Sept. 18th	Overall Research Agenda and Tips for the Job Market	Poster
Jiuchen Deng	Applied Economics, UMN	Oct. 2nd	The Development of Personality Traits and Cognitive Skills in Adolescence: Evidence from a Skill Formation Model and a Control Function Approach	Poster
Evan Cunningham	Economics, UMN	Oct. 16th	Local Labor Market Effects of Amazon	Poster
Divya Pandey	Applied Economics, UMN	Oct. 30th	The Impact of Weather Shocks on Fertility in Rural India	Poster
Monique Davis	Applied Economics, UMN	Nov. 6th	Safety for Whom? How Law Enforcement and School Resource Officer Training Impacts Racial Gaps in School Exclusionary	Poster
Qingyin Cai	Applied Economics, UMN	Nov. 13th	Drought and the Specialty Crop Production in California	Poster
Yanxu Long	Applied Economics, UMN	Nov. 27th	Payments for Ecosystem Services, Reforestation and Rural Livelihoods	Poster
Ana Melissa Perez	Applied Economics, UMN	Dec. 11th	Mass Shootings and their Effects on Food Shopping Behavior	Poster

Skill Series

On the off-weeks when the APEC Seminar Series does not have a speaker, the department will be hosting the APEC Skill Series. This is a workshop-style series featuring students, faculty, and staff from the APEC department offering a variety of presentations and demonstrations for to teach and develop technical skills, soft skills, and mathematical/ course-related skills useful for an applied economist. In an effort at accessibility of the content, we provide links to the presentation materials where applicable as well as recordings of the workshop given the presenter’s consent (Please find links in the table below).

Please find the current list of skills presenters below.

2024 Fall Workshop Schedule

Speaker	Date	Title	Link to Poster	Link to Materials/Slides	Presentation Recording
Yufeng Lai	Sept. 11th	Non-traditional skills for Economists to Deliver in the Tech Sector	Poster	Slides	YouTube
Abel Broduer	Sept. 25th	Reproducibility, Replication Packets, and Pre-analysis Plans	Poster	Slides	YouTube
Willy Lee	Oct. 9th	Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Academia and DEI Statements for the Job Market	Poster	Slides	YouTube
Caroline Krafft	Oct. 23rd	Survey Design	Poster	Slides	YouTube

Seminar Organizers

The current organizer of the APEC Student Seminar Series and Skills Series is Ryan McWay. Ryan is a 2nd year PhD student in the Applied Economics department. If you have any questions or concerns related to the seminar series, you may create an issue via the Github Issues page or contact Ryan directly.

The following is a list of the previous organizers of the APEC Seminar Series.

Organizers	Sessions
Carmen Raquel Rosario Armas Montalvo	2024 – Present
Ryan McWay	2023 – 2025
Yanxu Long	2023
Matthew Bombyk	2022 – 2023
Chris Boyd	2021 – 2022
Natalia Ordaz Reynoso	2019 – 2021

Contact Information

The seminar is hosted in room 119 in Ruttan Hall on the Saint Paul campus. Details on the seminar can be directed towards the seminar organizer, Ryan McWay, via email.

We would like to acknowledge the gratious support of funding through the Applied Economics department for making this seminar posssible. And to the Applied Economics department for hosting the seminar space.

Funding

The seminar series and skills workshop series has been funded in previous semesters by the University of Minnesota’s CFANS GSB Community Events and Projects Grant.