Department News - Spring 2006

Professors Mason and Roumasset win College Distinguished Research Awards

Congratulations to Andy Mason and Jim Roumasset for winning the College's Distinguished Research Awards for 2005-06. Only 7 awards were made in the entire College--2 for economics, 2 for psychology, 1 for political science, 1 for geography, and 1 for anthropology. Each award comes with a financial emolument of $5,000--$3,000 for the winner and $2,000 for the Department.

Kimberly, Burnett, UHM Economics Doctoral Student, Publishes Research on Invasive Species

Burnett, Kimberly. 2006. "Introductions of Invasive Species: Failure of the Weaker Link." Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, in press.

Burnett, K., B. Kaiser, B. Pitafi, and J. Roumasset. 2006. "Prevention, Eradication, and Containment of Invasive Species: Illustrations from Hawaii." Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, in press.

Both papers were presented at the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association's Economics of Invasive Species Workshop. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the USDA Economic Research Service, and the Farm Foundation sponsored this workshop held in Annapolis, Maryland on June 14-15, 2005.

Prof Sumner La Croix Contributes to New Release of Historical Statistics

In the early 1990s, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that it would stop compiling Historical Statistics of the United States, the authoritative reference work for quantitative information on the United States. A team of renowned social scientists came together with Cambridge University Press to fill the gap. Their efforts have produced the 5-volume millennial edition of Historical Statistics, just published (online and print editions) in February 2006. More than 200 of the nation's leading economists, historians, political scientists, sociologists, and other scholars contributed to the new edition, which presents and analyzes more than 37,000 annual time series of quantitative historical information covering virtually every quantifiable dimension of American history. Professor Sumner La Croix, UHM Economics and Population Studies, is the editor of the "Outlying Areas" chapter, which presents and discusses data for U.S. trusts, territories and commonwealths, including Alaska, Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Trust Territory of the Pacific, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Panama Canal Zone, and the Philippines. For more information on the millennial edition, see http://www.cambridge.org/us/americanhistory/hsus/.