James DeNicco

Jimmy is the Director of the Principles of Economics Program and a Senior Lecturer at Rice University. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Drexel University in 2013, where his primary concentration was in Macroeconomics and his secondary in Industrial Organization. He has a real passion for teaching Economics, going back to his first time in the classroom in 2010 during graduate school. He was awarded as the “Outstanding Ph.D. Instructor” for the Lebow College of Business at Drexel University. He currently teaches Principles of Economics to about 700 Rice students annually. He also teaches in the Master of Arts in Global Affairs and the Master of Social Policy Evaluation programs. In his first seven years at Rice University, he has won the Malcolm Gillis Award for Distinction in Undergraduate Teaching in Economics, the Sarah A. Burnett Teaching Prize in the Social Sciences, the Nicholas Salgo Distinguished Teaching Award, the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching, and the George R. Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching, which is considered the University’s highest teaching award. Jimmy’s primary research interests are in Macroeconomics and applied Macroeconomics, especially the relationship between GDP growth and labor dynamics. His publications include “Employment-At-Will Exceptions and Jobless Recovery” in the Journal of Macroeconomics, “Jobless Recovery: A Time Series Look at the United States” in the Atlantic Economic Journal, and “Factors of one-year college retention in a public state college system” in the Research and Higher Education Journal.