September 2025 Newsletter

Dear Alumni and Friends,

Summer break has come to an end, and we are officially into the new school year. Let me share some updates.

Undergraduate Program

We are growing! At the end of the spring 2025 semester, we had 200 more majors than the year before. Behind this growth is a wave of new initiatives. Thanks to the generosity of alumni and friends, we have been making major investments in our curriculum, including our new Business Economics major, launched last year in partnership with the Carlson School and off to a fast start.

Exciting things are happening outside the classroom as well—such as our New York career trip (special thanks to alum Matt Mazzucchi for leading this—more on that below) and our new department-wide graduation ceremony (also highlighted later).

And inside the classroom, we have made important changes to our core intermediate micro and macro sequence. These are the entry points into the major, once students have completed calculus and introductory economics. We have restructured them into sequential half-semester modules—delivering the same rigorous content while giving students exposure to four faculty perspectives right at the start of the major.

Our lineup in the coming year is exceptional:

• Macro (Fall): Dr. Terry Fitzgerald (former Vice President at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, who also regularly teaches Money and Banking), followed by Professor Kyle Herkenhoff, a rising star who holds the Curtis L. Carlson Chair.
• Macro (Spring): Professor Anmol Bhandari, another rising star who holds the Carter-Schwab Professorship, and Professor Ellen McGrattan, a long-established leader in the field.
• Micro (Fall): Professor Mariacristina De Nardi, a long-established leader in the field, who holds the Thomas Sargent Professorship.
• Micro (Spring): Dr. Ayça Ozdogan, our Director of Undergraduate Studies (and Minnesota PhD alum!)

And I have the privilege of being the lead-off instructor for micro in both semesters.

Of course, a great lineup of instructors is only part of the story. We are also adapting the classroom experience to new realities—including artificial intelligence. In economics, AI is both a subject of study and a tool for learning. In my intermediate micro course, we will examine how AI is reshaping production, labor markets, and investment. At the same time, with AI lowering the barriers to coding, we are bringing coding into a course that traditionally would not have included it.

But while tools evolve, the fundamentals remain the same. Pencil and paper are still at the core of the course—and yes, our exams are still handwritten, grounding students in clear, rigorous economic reasoning.

Graduate Program

This fall we are welcoming sixteen new PhD students—five from the United States and eleven from abroad. While there were more delays than usual with visa processing, happily everyone arrived in time for the start of the semester.

I am pleased to report that we were able to make significant use of fellowships in support of this entering class. Nearly half received full fellowships for their first year, while the rest received partial fellowships to supplement their teaching assistant stipends. The generosity of our alumni and friends in building up our fellowship endowment has been critical in sustaining our graduate program and enabling us to attract top students. There is more work to do in building our fellowship resources, but the strong momentum gives us confidence for the future.

At the other end of the program, fifteen PhD students will be finishing and going on the job market this year. I encourage you to take a look at the candidate list when it is posted in October. In the meantime, last year’s placements are available here.

Faculty

We are delighted to welcome Professor Anran Li, previously on the faculty at Cornell and a PhD graduate of Northwestern.

We also bid farewell to long-time faculty member Professor Fatih Guvenen, who is joining the University of Toronto. We are grateful for Fatih’s many contributions to Minnesota Economics.

Finally, congratulations to Professor Manuel Amador, who has been appointed McKnight Distinguished University Professor, one of the University’s highest recognitions for faculty achievement. He will continue to hold the Anne O. Krueger Professorship in Economics, established by our generous alumni to honor one of our most distinguished former faculty members, Anne Krueger—herself a world leader in international economics, like Manuel.

Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute

We have an exciting HHEI Fall Roundtable coming up:

Fair Shares: Exploring the Role of Wealth Taxes in Modern Economies
Featuring Professor Florian Scheuer (University of Zurich) and our own Kjetil Storesletten, Director of HHEI.
 📅 September 25, 2025 | 🕔 5:00–6:30 PM
 For more information, and to register to attend in person or by Zoom, please visit HHEI’s events page.

Also, don’t miss the HHEI Office Hours Podcast Series, including the most recent episode, “The Trade War between the U.S. and China: What’s at Stake in the Decoupling.” By popular demand, we have now added video.

Thank you for your ongoing interest and support of the Department of Economics and the Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute. If you’d like to make an unrestricted gift, you can contribute to the Economics Annual Fund or the Heller-Hurwicz Program Fund. You can also search for your favorite named fund. Thanks to the generosity of our alumni and friends, we continue striving to be one of the best economics programs in the world.

Wishing you all the best,

Tom

Thomas J. Holmes
Professor and Chair
Department of Economics
[email protected]