Dear BEPP Community, I am thrilled to write to you again as a kick-off and welcome to our annual department newsletter and blog! The BEPP department consists of high-caliber economists working within a top business school. As such, our primary purpose is to bring the rigor and critical thinking inherent in economic modeling and… Read more »
Faculty
Vietnam Initiative: A Global Knowledge Network
The Vietnam Initiative (VNi) is a global network for research and training in development policy in Vietnam. Founded in 2010 by IU’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs Professor Tran Ngoc Anh, the VNi is a large group of independent scholars, who organize regular seminars and conferences in Vietnam. Andreas Hauskrecht, Clinical Professor of… Read more »
Turkish Initiative: Offering Projects & Programs
About five years ago, the President of IU, the Dean of the Kelley School, and the Associate Dean of Kelley visited Turkey to see what opportunities might exist for a collaboration. In 2017, Kerem Cakirer, BEPP senior lecturer, began working with the Turkish Initiative, serving as director. The goal of the Turkish Initiative is to… Read more »
IU Welcomes Severin Borenstein as Featured Speaker for the Bonser Lecture
In February 2020, BEPP and the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs hosted its annual Bonser lecture series. Its namesake, Charles Bonser, is a well-known academic and influential across both departments at IU. Andrew Butters, who helped organize this year’s lecture, says that the series creates an opportunity to bring in well-established thought… Read more »
Alumni Spotlight
In 2020, Laura Swedo graduated from the Kelley School of Business with a BEPP degree, having majored in economic consulting and co-majored in business analytics. “I was always interested in economics, and the business economics courses were my favorite, along with econometrics and managerial economics,” says Swedo. In one of her business analytics classes, they… Read more »
Faculty Spotlight: Matthijs R. Wildenbeest
Matthijs R. Wildenbeest joined IU in 2007, right after earning his Ph.D. in Economics from Erasmus University in the Netherlands. He’s currently teaching Business Econometrics in the undergraduate program and Predictive Analytics for Business Strategy in the online MBA program. In recent years, he’s also taught Predictive Analytics for Business Strategy in the residential MBA… Read more »
Course Spotlight: G316 Sustainable Enterprise
“Sustainability means change,” says Steven Kreft, who teaches the undergraduate G316 course called Sustainable Enterprise. It follows the book Getting Green Done by Auden Schendler, which was written in 2009 and focuses on the barriers that block the business case for sustainability. “The status quo of business is not sustainable in its present form so… Read more »
Faculty Spotlight: Francesco Marchionne
The first time Francesco Marchionne came to Bloomington, he was introduced to Indiana’s fickle Midwestern weather. It was Feb 28, 2014, and temperatures were pleasant and warm. The following day, however, it started snowing and didn’t stop for three days. Being Italian, the stark temperature changes were a definite shock—especially when the cold snap lasted… Read more »
New Faculty: Deepal Basak
Deepal Basak grew up in a small town called Malda in West Bengal, India. He attended St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata and after graduation, he moved to Delhi to study Quantitative Economics at the Indian Statistical Institute. That was when he realized that he wanted to be a researcher and work on Game Theory, so he… Read more »
Managerial Economics Revamped to Better Serve MBA Students
The Kelley Direct (KD) G596 Managerial Economics was recently revamped by Steven and Ellie Kreft to become an integrated Core in the MBA program that also includes Organizational Behavior and Business Law. The philosophy behind the overhaul was to make integration impactful for students rather than surface-level. Since MBAs already have a lot of experience… Read more »