Image Credit: Paige Gance
Graduate students, faculty and 23 prospective graduate students attended the AREC graduate student research poster session on Monday, April 3, hosted in the department’s conference room.
Four graduate students presented their research. Guanghui Que, a fourth year, had a poster about Consumer Behavior and Household Electricity Demand Estimation Under Nonlinear Pricing: Evidence from China. His research concluded that consumers are rational in their consumption of electricity.
A third year graduate student, M. Mehrab Bin Bakhtiar, also had a poster at the session titled Training Mentors? Experimental Evidence from a Two-Stage Training/Mentorship Program. Based on his research, Bin Bakhtiar found that the first stage of formal training had no significant effect on profit, sales or number of employees within a business. However, the second stage of the mentorship program had stronger effects.
“It’s cool to see what I would be able to do in a year or two,” said Zedekiah Higgs, a prospective student who was visiting the department and attended the session.
Second year graduate student Tihitina Andarge presented on her research about Maryland farmers who comply with the Maryland Water Quality Improvement Act and create a Nutrient Management Plan.
“Overall there is a 65 percent compliance rate, which isn’t good,” said Andarge. The title of her poster was Determinants of Compliance with Nutrient Management Laws under Target Enforcement.
“The purpose of the paper was to investigate the determinants of the plan, ” said Andarge. She found that farm size significantly increases compliance and have a Nutrient Management Plan while the receipt of cost-sharing and slope had no significant impact.
Youpei Yan, a fourth year graduate student, spoke about her poster Strategic Polluters in China: Geographic Spillovers in Water Pollution.
“Basically I examine firms to see if firms closer to downstream export more pollution,” said Yan. Her research confirmed that pollution levels have a significant geographic pattern.
“The session is great,” said Yan. “Students get the chance to talk to professors and learn what they are working on.”
The AREC Graduate Student Organization hosted the session. The Department would like to thank the Graduate Student Government (GSG) at the University of Maryland for the financial support for the poster session.
