Webinar Bincang Karya or BIANKA on US Economic Development and Environment
Washington, DC., (10/13/2020). The theme of the 8th series of BIANKA or Bincang Karya, a serial-webinar held by the Indonesian Embassy in Washington D.C., USA through the Attaché for Education and Culture, was US Economic Development and Environment. The webinar invited Prof. Daniele Tavani, Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, Colorado State University who talked about the Department of Economics at CSU especially about what courses they teach, the requirements for the PhD program and a brief overview of research that they do in the department. The next section of his presentation was about a brief explanation about some of his research on Technical Change, Secular Stagnation and Inequality. Some researches on Coordination and Externalities in Macroeconomics and then some researches on Public R&D and some recent facts of Growth and Distribution.
The recorded live event of BIANKA Seri-8 can be accessed in the following link http://bit.ly/fb-watch-bianka8
Thee webinar chaired by Prof. Popy Rufaidah, the Education and Cultural Attaché, also had Prof. Christopher Goemans, the Chair of Graduate Program, College of Agriculture Science, Agricultural and Resource Economics- Colorado State University. In his presentation, Prof. Goemans explained briefly about the Master of Science program and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) program. Some other aspects such as the description about the exam and research areas and opportunities were also presented. Prof. Goemans also added that one of the really nice things of their program was they really work hard to get students involved in research and whether that’s in the laboratory experiment.
There were two Indonesian students who also participated in this webinar. Those were Wisnu Setiadi Nugroho from the Department of Economics, Colorado State University and A.A.Sg. Putri Komala Dara from the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Colorado State University. Mr. Nugroho’s topic was about How Important Geographic and Environmental Aspects Determine Poverty Traps. He focused his presentation on his research in Indonesia related to geographic poverty traps. The research focused in answering questions such as does Geographic Poverty Trap exist? If so, what is the cause and what can be done.
Meanwhile, A.A.Sg. Putri Komala Dara delivered her presentation entitled The Impact of Extreme Drought on Crop Abandonment in the Ogallala Aquifer Region. The research wanted to answer how extreme drought affects crop abandonment and also the extent to which access to groundwater for irrigation can adversely affect prolonged drought. The results showed that one week’s increase in drought will result in crop abandonment of 0.09% -0.02%. These results indicated that indeed continuous and very intense drought affects crop abandonment. The conclusion was that extreme and continuous drought would result in an increase in crop abandonment. The drought in the third quarter had the biggest impact.
Prof. Rina Indiastuti, Rector of Padjajaran University, Bandung became the last speaker in this great event. Prof. Indiastuti presented about the US-Indonesia Research Collaboration on Economic Development and Environment: Practices and Collaboration at Padjajaran University, Indonesia. Several Researches in Economics at Padjajaran University were shared in the presentation including the number of citation. Related to the research collaboration, she stated that if research was carried out in collaboration with both fellow universities and fellow domestic and foreign researchers the results would turn out to be very good. Prof. Indiastuti also mentioned some potential topics for research collaboration in Economics with Padjajaran University such as SDG’s progress and monitoring, economics modelling, poverty and inequality, labor market dynamics, etc.