Vita FaychukFaculty

Welcome to the fascinating world of economics that helps you navigate your life through informed decisions!

Life is all about choices. Opportunities are boundless, but our resources are not, so we cannot get everything we want (acing every test while basking in endless social gathering or savoring our cake and still keeping it whole),  we are forced to navigate the art of choice. 

Economics offers a framework of thinking to make all sorts of choices better and, as a result, people happier. 

Economics is applicable to the broadest range of problems: from practical (e.g., shoult I get an overtime job?) to more formal and academic  that overlap all sorts of disciplines: gender and race discrimination, inequality, poverty, crime, health care, philantropy, education, religion, innovation, teenage pregnancy, immigration, artificial intelligence, urban planning, climate change, designing rules and principles that govern different institutions (from central banks, taxation, political campaigns, colleges, all sorts of contracts to local parking rules). All these areas are unified by a common goal: maximizing societal benefits.

Get a glimpse of the breadth and impact of economics through the program of the ASSA latest annual meeting. It is one of the top and largest (over 13,000 participants last year) conferences in the world held by the American Economic Association in conjunction with 61 associations in related disciplines (which is probably the best indicator of the multidisciplinary nature of economics). Another good illustration is the list of economics journals.

>> Major in Economics: what can you do with it?  

• Real entry jobs for economics majors: entry jobs with undergraduate economics degree
• What do economists do? How is economics useful for other professions? 
• How much economists make? All,graduate degree, financial/investment analysts,   
• More about economics and career opportunities for economics majors, check the treasure trove of resources available from the American Economic Association.
• Economics degree is very versatile. You can get even more ideas of various areas you can apply it to from the  list of Nobel Prize laureates in Economics and their areas of contribution. Your name could be on this list too. Everything is possible, the sky is the limit!
• Nobel Conference 2016 at Gustavus: John List, PhD presenting "Using Field Experiments to Make the World a Better Place"
• getting PhD in economics (advice for applicants)

>> Economics reading list

>> Women in Economics: 

• Esther Duflo (economics of poverty, using randomized experiments to devise policies to save lives and get kids out of poverty, one of only tow women with Nobel in Economics)
• Marianne Bertrand (economics of gender and inequality, bias in the job market)
• Claudia Goldin (economic historian and labor economist, she was a pioneer in the study of gender discrimination and broad women's role in the U.S. economy)
• Elinor Ostrom (economics of common resources, she studied how the government can set the rules for the collective use of a limited common resource such as parks and lakes, which will prevent selfish overuse and devastation, but result in renewal and preservation of those resources; she is the first woman of only two with Nobel in Economics; I was fortunate to meet her as a doctoral student at Indiana, I remember her being very intelligent and even more humble as a person).
• Janet Yellen ( monetary economics - how the government can change various interest rates to help economy and people; the first women Chair of the Federal Reserve, and the most likely next Treasury Secretary)
• Anna Schwartz (one of most influential monetary economists of the 20th century)
• Christina Romer (macroeconomic historian and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers 
• Gita Gopinath (economic growth, Chief Economist at IMF)
• Paola Sapienza (studies the impact of culture on economic outcomes)
• Ekaterina Zhuravskaya (studies how peoples’ beliefs and prejudices towards different ethnic groups and how these can lead to ethnic conflicts or wars)
• Maureen O'Hara (financial economics - market microstructure, bitcoins, financial technology innovation)

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Bio:  As a doctoral student at Indiana University, I pursued two major fields: Econometrics and Finance (at the Kelley School of Business). Additionally, I obtained two minors in Game Theory and Industrial Organizations. Doctoral level classes in Econometrics taken at IU Economics Department: Theory of Statistics, Time Series Analysis, Non-Linear and Simultaneous Models, Macroeconometrics, Microeconometrics, Seminar in Econometrics, Seminar in Advanced Econometrics, and half-semester seminar in Treatment Analysis. Doctoral level classes in Finance: Asset Pricing, Corporate Finance, Market Microstructure, Empirical Finance, Selected Topics. 

Pre-Gustavus teaching experience:  "Money and Banking" , "International Economic Relations", "Principles of Macroeconomics" at Miami University (Oxford, OH), "Introduction to Microeconomics", "Introduction to Macroeconomics", "Statistical Analysis for Business and Economics", "Survey of Calculus" at Indiana University (Bloomington, IN).

Pre-Gustavus non-academic work experience: Manager, Quantitative Analysis at NЕСА (NJ), Management Consultant at ZAR Group (NJ), Junior Economist (Ministry of Finance, Ukraine).

Selected conference presentations: ASSA Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, Jan. 6-8, 2017 (American Economic Association, Financial Economics session). Southern Finance Association, Annual Meeting, Key West FL, Nov. 17-20, 2017. Midwest Finance Association, Annual Meeting, Atlanta GA, March 2-5, 2016.

Gustavus activity: Business and Economics Department Art Re-Wamp Committee (2023), Gustavus Faculty Compensation, Internal Budget, and Benefits Committees (2019-2023), Nobel Conference 2022, Ukraine Town Hall (April 2022), A Musical Vigil for Ukraine (Feb 2023), Ukraine: Courage and Cuisine (Feb 2024).  

Mental health and economics: my interview for the ScienceWhy podcast : https://anchor.fm/sciencewhys/episodes/Hosting-Daniel-Eisenberg-e1no93o  (August 2022)

Courses Taught