CPUC taps Vial Center to study state's green jobs needs
The California Public Utilities Commission has chosen UC Berkeley’s Donald Vial Center on Employment in the Green Economy to lead a $1.1 million study to assess California’s workforce development needs as part of the state’s long-term strategic plan for energy efficiency.
(08 December)

Bosses who feel inadequate can turn into bullies
Bosses who are in over their heads are more likely to bully subordinates. That’s because feelings of inadequacy trigger them to lash out at those around them, according to new research from the UC Berkeley, and the University of Southern California. In a new twist on the adage “power corrupts,” researchers at UC Berkeley and USC have found a direct link among supervisors and upper management between self-perceived incompetence and aggression. The findings, gleaned from four separate studies, are published in the November issue of the journal Psychological Science.
(13 October)

Stockholm calling
When Oliver Williamson's phone rang at 3:30 Monday morning, he wasn't entirely surprised to find the Nobel Prize committee on the line. But Berkeley's newly minted economics laureate was variously elated, proud and humbled as he recounted the moment later Monday for well-wishers and the media.
(12 October)

UC Berkeley's Oliver Williamson shares Nobel Prize in economics
Olier Williamson, the Edgar F. Kaiser Professor Emeritus of Business Economics, and Law at UC Berkeley, a pioneer of the multi-disciplinary field of transaction cost economics, and one of the world's most cited economists, is a winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics.
(12 October)

Money rocks (and raps) in economics grad students' music videos
A group of graduate students in the Berkeley economics department, calling themselves the Metrics Gang, relate the trials and tribulations of their doctoral quest in four popular online singles.
(13 July)

Report: Widespread data sharing, "Web bugs"
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Information released a report late Monday (June 1) showing that the most popular Web sites all share data with their corporate affiliates and allow third parties to collect information directly by using tracking beacons known as "Web bugs" - despite the sites' claims that they don't share user data with third parties.
(02 June)

Obama calls on Berkeley School of Antitrust
Two University of California, Berkeley, professors who will become the federal government's top antitrust economists and a third chosen as a senior official in the same field are among the latest campus faculty members enlisted to help the Obama administration shape policy for the nation. Their appointments highlight the growing strength of Berkeley School of Antitrust Economics.
(28 May)

Ausin Hoggatt, professor emeritus at the Haas School, dies at age 79
Austin "Auggie" Hoggatt, professor emeritus at the Haas School of Business, died April 29 at age 79. His research and consulting spanned many fields, including computer simulations, experimental economics, management science, and savings and loans.
(07 May)

Transportation expert Ernest Koenigsberg passes away
Ernest Koenigsberg, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business and an expert in operations research and management science, with a focus on transportation, died on April 20 of heart failure at his home in San Francisco. He was 86.
(30 April)

Emmanuel Saez wins 2009 John Bates Clark Medal
University of California, Berkeley, professor Emmanuel Saez, a leading scholar of tax policy and the distribution of income and wealth, is the latest recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded by the American Economics Association (AEA) to the U.S. economist under 40 making the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge.
(29 April)

Public finance scholar George F. Break dead at 88
George F. Break, an emeritus professor of economics at UC Berkeley, and an authority on public finance, died of heart failure at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley on March 13. He was 88.
(30 March)

U.S. economy spurs foreign students to return home, study says
Most foreign nationals studying at universities in the United States say American higher education is the best in the world, but few plan to remain in this country after graduation to pursue their careers, according to a new study co-authored by a UC Berkeley, authority on technology and the global economy.
(19 March)

How are Berkeley students faring in hard times?
Many UC Berkeley students currently find themselves looking for cheaper housing, worrying about debt, or (especially if they're about to graduate) stressing about their job prospects. Eleven undergrads discuss how the economic downturn is affecting them. (With audio.)
(16 March)

Inexpensive flooring change improves child health in urban slums
Replacing dirt floors with cement in the homes of urban slums makes for more comfortable living – but more importantly, it significantly improves children’s health by interrupting the transmission of intestinal parasites and boosts their cognitive abilities, according to a new study conducted for UC Berkeley’s Center of Evaluation for Global Action.
(10 March)

Linking fast food proximity to obesity
Location is everything – and that goes for fast food as well as for real estate. California's nearly 3 million 9th graders are at least 5.2 percent more likely to be obese if there is a fast food restaurant within a tenth of a mile of their school, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, economists.
(04 March)

Economist James L. Pierce, authority on banking and monetary policy, dies
James L. Pierce, a professor emeritus of economics at UC Berkeley and an authority on banking and monetary policy, died of lung disease in Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, Calif., on Feb. 15. He was 71.
(25 February)

Sloan fellowships awarded to seven young faculty members
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced today (Tuesday, Feb. 17) 118 new fellowship awards to early-career scientists, seven of them young faculty researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.
(17 February)

Obama's race not a factor in election, say economists
Reinforcing the notion of a "post racial" nation, two University of California, Berkeley, researchers' analysis of voting patterns indicates that voters were not motivated by race in the 2008 U.S. election of Barack Obama, the country's first black president.
(12 February)

MBA competition to address D.C. schools performance
Ten teams from top business schools around the country will set their sights on improving the public school system in the nation's capitol in the third annual Education Leadership Case Competition at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business on Feb. 20-21.
(10 February)

Educator Bill Sonnenschein dies in Madagascar
William "Bill" Sonnenschein, a senior lecturer on leadership and communication at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, passed away suddenly on December 29 in Madagascar. He was 59.
(07 January)