Trick or Treat? Econ Ed Month Meets Halloween

In combination with October being Econ Ed Month and the arrival of Halloween 2023 in just a few days, Turner Business decided to produce a couple of blogs dealing with Halloween-related research affiliated with the Turner College's Center for Economic Education, which is led by Turner College economist Frank Mixon. Both of these studies involve the trick-or-treating tradition that characterizes the last day of October each year. The first extends a 1996 book titled Accounting for Tastes by 1992 Nobel Prize–winning economist Gary Becker (1930-2014) that discusses the usefulness of societal norms, which are those common values of a group that influence an individual’s behavior in ways that reduce the need to spend both public and private resources on the protection of property. Until Becker’s book there was no generally accepted approach to the growth and decay of societal norms.

Mixon and his coauthors Tessa Pousson of Loyola University - New Orleans and Jared Loftus of the University of Southern Mississippi published a 2005 article appearing in Applied Economics Letters that explores the decay of social norms using an economic model of the production of social order in the context of edicts employed by cities/municipalities that govern trick-or-treating activities on Halloween. More specifically, the article examines the factors that lead modern-day city mayors and/or city councils to issue edicts regarding the “rules” for trick-or-treating (e.g., start time, end time, age limit, etc.) on Halloween when their political predecessors relied on social norms to govern trick-or-treating. The analysis suggests that such edicts are more likely to occur in densely-populated cities, cities with more heterogeneous populations, cities with higher proportions of single-parent families, and cities with higher home ownership rates. At the time of the study, almost 20 percent of U.S. cities employed these trick-or-treating edicts. Clearly, then, norms and social conventions can and do erode (i.e., lose their effectiveness).

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Four Turner College Faculty Recognized for Outstanding Teaching

CSU Head Women's Soccer Coach Jay Entlich recently released a list of CSU faculty who have been chosen by a player as a member of the CSU faculty who has impacted the player in a positive way along their journey at CSU. Four Turner College faculty were included on the list, along with the player who nominated each. Management professor Phil Bryant was named by Sophia Leal , a freshman midfielder from Oxford, Georgia. Sophia attended Eastside High School and was a two-time all-region selection during her high school career. Through the first 10 games of 2024, she has scored one goal and recorded three assists. Next, management professor John Finley was named by Lizz Forshaw , a graduate student forward from Stockton, England. Lizz, who attended IMG Academy in south Florida, has scored four goals and recorded four assists this season. During her senior year in 2023, she scored three goals and recorded two assists. As a junior in 2022, Lizz scored three goals ...

Turner College Grad Publishes Academic Study on Corporate Culture and Strategy

Former Turner College student Tamara Todorova , now an associate professor of economics at American University in Bulgaria (AUB), recently published a study on corporate culture and strategy. Todorova earned an MBA from the Turner College in 1996 and then went on to earn a doctorate in international economics from the University of Economics - Varna in 2001. She has been on the faculty at AUB since August of 2000. Todorova's study, which appears in the current issue of the International Journal of Business Performance Management , investigates how corporate culture helps to economize on the transaction costs of internal organization. As she explains, the dimensions of corporate culture that assist in this task include increasing trust and reducing intrafirm opportunism. Todorova's study demonstrates that setting common goals and a common direction reduces the sizeable costs of internal organization. Tamara's prior research appears in Economics of Transition , International ...

Hammer joins Turner College Finance Faculty

The Turner College's Department of Accounting and Finance welcomes Melissa Ingle Hammer , who joins the group as an adjunct faculty in finance. Hammer graduated from the Turner College in 2005, after earning a BBA in finance. She later went on to earn an MBA from Auburn University, a Specialist Certificate in Conduct Risk from the University of Manchester, a Certificate in Team Culture from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Certificate in Executive Presence from Cornell University. Hammer is the SVP of Fair Lending Product Management with RiskExec at Asurity. She previously worked as Compliance Manager of Fair Lending at Synovus, a senior regulatory consultant with Wolters Kluwer, and as VP of Compliance at TD. This semester Hammer will be teaching FINC 3135, Financial Institutions and Technologies. Turner Business welcomes Melissa and wishes her a great first semester in the Turner College.

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