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Howard Bodenhorn, associate professor of economics and business at Lafayette, has received the prestigious honor of being appointed a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
About 600 NBER members are chosen from the 10,000 or more academic economists in the U.S. More than a third of Nobel laureates in economics, and several current and past members of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, are current or past NBER associates.
Economists are nominated by their peers and appointed to NBER positions because their research is innovative and they have made significant contributions to the economics literature and to the understanding of economic phenomena. Although the NBER is committed to nonpartisan research, much of the work has direct policy implications, and the NBER working paper series has as much influence on academic research as any of the major economics journals.
Bodenhorn was notified of the honor by Michael H. Moskow, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Moskow is a 1959 Lafayette graduate and a member of the College’s Board of Trustees.
Bodenhorn has been appointed to the Development of the American Economy (DAE) section, which is made up mostly of economic and business historians. In some regards, the DAE represents a continuation of the NBER’s original mission, which was to collect and analyze historical data reflecting on U.S. economic growth and the nature of business cycles. Business cycle research remains a principal focus of NBER; its Business Cycle Dating group made news last week when it announced that the U.S. economy had fallen into recession in March.
Earlier this year Bodenhorn was awarded a $65,227 grant from the National Science Foundation for research on the economic consequences of race in the antebellum South. The grant is funding study for a book on the economic condition of free African Americans living in the antebellum United States. It also will result in numerous articles submitted to leading scholarly journals in economics and economic history.
Bodenhorn launched the project’s preliminary work this summer with the assistance of Lafayette student Shivani Malhotra, a junior economics and business major from Bangalore, India. Malhotra was a participant in Lafayette’s EXCEL Scholars program, in which students collaborate closely with faculty on research projects while earning a stipend.
Last school year, Bodenhorn received at $15,000 grant from the Earhart Foundation for a research project entitled “In the Shadow of Slavery: The Free Black Experience in the Antebellum South.”
Bodenhorn, a Lafayette faculty member since 1993, is an expert in American economic and financial history, law, and economics, and industrial organization. He is author of A History of Banking in Antebellum America: Financial Markets and Economic Development in an Age of Nation Building, published last year by Cambridge University Press. He conducted research for the book under a major grant from the John M. Olin Foundation.
A new book, State Banking in Early America: A New Economic History, is scheduled for publication this year by Oxford University Press. Bodenhorn has also published more than 30 papers in peer-reviewed academic journals and serves on the editorial board of the journal Explorations in Economic History. He has given 10 presentations at academic conferences and seminars since September 1999.
Bodenhorn actively involves Lafayette students in his research. Besides engaging EXCEL Scholars, in each year since 1996 he has served as adviser to an outstanding senior writing an in-depth thesis to graduate with departmental honors.
One student’s thesis earned the Cliometric Society’s annual award for best undergraduate essay in economics and another was nominated for the same prize. Yet another student’s thesis was published in revised form in Stats: The Magazine for Students of Statistics.
This summer, under Bodenhorn’s supervision, Malhotra began researching tax records from the mid-1800s to compile data on the economic conditions of freed black Americans in Virginia. She created spreadsheets to compare what blacks owned with what whites owned from 1830-60 to determine the disparities between the two groups. Her work, which also included conducting background literature searches and reading related materials, is continuing over the fall and spring semesters.
“EXCEL is definitely one of Lafayette’s positive points. It offers a unique experience to students and professors,” says Malhotra, who is president of the Asian Cultural Association, an active member of the International Students Association, a resident adviser, and an intramural sports champion in fall relays, two-on-two basketball, three-on-three basketball, and miniature golf.
Bodenhorn is very clear about what he wants, yet very helpful, taking time to explain things when she faces doubts, says Malhotra. “The college as a whole has lived up to my expectations, and the professors and facilities are great.”
Bodenhorn says Malhotra’s contributions have been impressive.
“She’s terrific,” he says. “She’s very dedicated and enthusiastic, always asking questions.” Bodenhorn took on Malhotra based on good reports concerning her prior experience as an EXCEL Scholar. Working with Andrea Smith, assistant professor of anthropology and sociology, Malhotra investigated the body of research on the five to seven million ex-colonists who returned to Europe after colonization faded out following World War I, with a special focus on former British colonizers of India.
In another EXCEL project with Bodenhorn this summer, Joshua Sullivan of Pennsauken, N.J., a junior double majoring in history and economics and business, tracked and analyzed various instruments for three U.S. financial markets based on prices from newspapers in the era of the War of 1812. The newspapers reported prices on a handful of traded equity securities, government bonds, U.S.-English exchange rates, and interest rates on short-term borrowings.
“We evaluated what those stock exchanges did before, during, and after the War of 1812. We looked at each week’s market readings and at what kind of stock fluctuations occurred. I also did extensive reading into the state of the economy at those times,” Sullivan explains. “We also looked at London and Amsterdam, comparing the pound and Netherlands’ guilder to the U.S. dollar. The hypothesis is that when ties were most hostile, exchange rates were great and money flow minimal.”
Sullivan and Bodenhorn created their own market-index similar to the Dow Jones Industrial Average or Standard and Poor’s.
“Anytime you get to work one-on-one with someone who’s working on something significant, it’s great,” says Sullivan, whose EXCEL project also is continuing over the fall and spring semesters.
During the January interim session and spring semester, Bodenhorn and Susan Averett, associate professor and associate head of economics and business, will work with Justas Staisiunas, a junior international affairs major from Panevezys, Lithuania, on an EXCEL project entitled “Compensating Differentials in Nineteenth Century Labor Markets.”
During the spring semester, Bodenhorn also will supervise Trisha Tozzi, a junior economics and business major from Old Greenwich, Conn., in an EXCEL project entitled “Did Shareholders Monitor?: The Turnover of Bank Directors in the Early Twentieth Century.”
Bodenhorn received the Otto Eckstein Prize for best article in Eastern Economic Journal, the Arthur H. Cole Award for best article in Journal of Economic History, and an award from Rutgers University for teaching excellence. He has been the recipient of three fellowships, including one for 2000-01 from the Earhart Foundation, as well as five externally-funded research grants and three grants funded by Lafayette.
He holds doctoral and master’s degrees in economics from Rutgers University and a bachelor’s degree from Virginia Tech.
Trisha Tozzi ’03 researched the relationship between early banks’ performance and the job security of their directors with Howard Bodenhorn, professor of economics and business.