Department of Economics : University of Rochester

The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US labor market like a tsunami, resulting in a degree of dislocation that is unusual even for the deepest recession. While the forecast will change as new data emerges, Lisa Kahn, a professor of economics, identifies three surprising ways in which the pandemic has reshaped the labor market landscape.

September 3, 2021

2021 Ron Jones International Trade Workshop

The Ron Jones International Workshop will be held September 23-24. The program can be found here with more event information.

August 30, 2021

Gilbert Lecture

The 55^th annual Gilbert Lecture will be delivered Thursday, November 4^th by Kevin Lang from Boston University. The lecture is titled “Tasks and Investment in Skills” and will be held in the Sloan Auditorium (Goergen 101) and will be at 4-5pm ET (with time for questions afterwards).

May 4, 2021

2021 Economics Commencement Ceremony

The 2021 Economics Commencement ceremony will be held via Zoom on Saturday, May 22, 2021, at 1 p.m. EST.

Spotlight

54^th Annual Gilbert Memorial Lecture

The 54^th Annual Gilbert Memorial Lecture was held on Tuesday, March 23, 2021 from 4-5:15 p.m. via Zoom. Tayfun Sonmez, professor of economics at Boston College presented "Fair Allocation of Vaccines, Ventilators and Antiviral Treatments: Leaving No Ethical Value Behind in Health Care Rationing" (joint with Parag A. Pathak, M. Utku Unver, and M. Bumin Yenmez).

A recording of the talk is available on YouTube.

Did you know?

Based on a Career Center survey of University of Rochester graduates from 2016-2019, two-thirds of Economics Department graduates are working and one-third are pursuing higher education. Of those working, Economics majors are earning $68,573 and Financial Economics majors are earning $68,191. This compares to the average salary of all other Rochester graduates (both College and Engineering) from this time period, of $57,885.

The Department of Economics is ranked among the top in the nation. In fact, because of our relatively small faculty size, the department ranks among the top five on a per-faculty basis.

Rochester’s economics PhD program—in existence since the 1950s—was created in part by Lionel McKenzie, one of the leading economists of the time.

Our graduates are prepared for careers in business and government as well as graduate studies in business administration, economics, public policy, law, and more.

Feature Story

Why the pandemic economy’s higher inflation rate is ‘a short-term blip’

Rochester economist Narayana Kocherlakota says a return to 1970s levels of inflation is unlikely—but offers a cautionary note.

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Three ways the COVID-19 pandemic has rocked the labor market