Aselia Urmanbetova
Academic Professional, Undergraduate Teaching Coordinator, Econ Club and ODE Advisor
- School of Economics
Overview
Aselia Urmanbetova is an Academic Professional in the School of Economics. Aselia's primary goal as an educator is ensuring that students in her classes feel that they can succeed and engage with economics course material in safe, equitable, and fun ways. She uses multiple active learning modalities that emphasize skill acquisition, application of knowledge to today's policy landscape, and long-term retention. In addition to teaching, Aselia heads Student Teaching and TA assignments for the School of Economics by managing and mentoring all of the Graduate Student Instructors and Graduate TAs and over 30 Undergraduate TAs.
Aselia is also actively engaged in student life as the primary advisor to GT Econ Club and Georgia Tech's chapter of ODE -- the international economics honor society. As a Yellow Jacket alumna, Aselia enjoys getting to know her students in and outside of class, and is an active service contributor to various initiatives focused on sustainability, equity, diversity, inclusion, mental health and wellbeing of all stakeholders on college campuses. Her research areas include open education resources, active learning pedagogies, industry studies, environmental policy, economic development, and transportation economics. Outside of work, Aselia pursues an active lifestyle as an avid yoga practitioner with 200 hours in YTT training and a certified dance enthusiast.
- PhD in Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology
- MS in Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology
- MS in International Relations, Georgia Institute of Technology
- BBA, Emory University
Interests
- Regional Development
- Accessibility
- Globalization and Localization
- Higher Education: Teaching and Learning
- Policy Analysis
- Political Economy
- Sustainability
Courses
- ECON-2101: The Global Economy
- ECON-2105: Prin of Macroeconomics
- ECON-4412: Cost-Benefit Analysis
- ECON-4811: Special Topics
- ECON-8801: Special Topics
Publications
Journal Articles
- Production and Cost in the U.S. Paper and Paperboard Industry
Date: June 2011
The US paper and paperboard industry has experienced significant structural changes over the past 25 years, including reductions in the number of mills, lower rates of capacity growth, employment cutbacks and a loss of market share to foreign competitors. These structural shifts portray an industry that increasingly has difficulty adapting to a more competitive global environment. Based on aggregate data from 1965 to 1996, this article estimates a short-run translog (TL) cost function for the industry. The estimated model fits the data well and all sample points satisfy monotonicity and concavity conditions at all points. Among the findings, the industry operates at slightly increasing returns to capital utilization and labour and energy are Allen–Uzawa complements but Morishima substitutes in production. Technological progress generated 0.02% reduction in annual operating costs and consistent with an ailing US industry, estimated marginal costs approximated average operating costs until 1982 after which marginal costs significantly diverged from average operating costs.
- A brief history of the future of manufacturing: US manufacturing technology forecasts in retrospective, 1950-present
In: International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2007
Chapters
- The Effect of Education and Wage Determination in China's Rural Industry
Date: 2007
Using recent rural household survey data, we investigate the effect of education on earnings in China's rural industry. OLS estimations present a very low return to schooling, i.e., 1-2% for women and insignificant for men, lower than that reported in other studies. In order to assess whether the OLS method causes biases in the estimated returns, we first investigate the possible attenuation bias caused by measurement error, and then correct the well-known omitted ability bias using various instrument variable estimations. Following the natural experiment approach, we identify a unique instrument attenuation bias, but the omitted ability bias appears to overestimate the rate of return. The instrumental variable estimations (2SLS and GMM) indicate that education has an insignificant effect on earnings. The institutional factors behind the rural wage structure and policy implications are discussed.
Other Publications
- A Brief History of the Future of Manufacturing: US Manufacturing Technology Forecasts in Retrospective, 1950-Present
Date: July 2007
This paper reviews the manufacturing technology forecasts made over the last five decades relative to the realisation of these predictions. Predictions as to how technology will evolve in future periods have had mixed records of fulfillment. Some mnaufactuing technology have not fulfilled expectations (e.g. integration technologies in the 1980s) whereas others have greatly exceeded expected adoption rates (e.g. the internet in the 1990s). Moreover, technology forecasts did not occur in a vacuum; they were always conjoined with projections about how to manage these technologies, global responses to these technologies, and the impact they will have on employment and skill.