UMass Econ in the News

Theresa Owusu-Danso

UMass Amherst Department of Economics PhD student Theresa Owusu-Danso is the recipient of two fellowships, a dissertation fellowship awarded by the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) and an international fellowship awarded by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Owusu-Danso’s dissertation is titled, “Microfinance, Household Indebtedness and Gender Inequality” and the awards from the AERC and AAUW will support her field work which involves a survey of households and microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Ghana during April-June, 2013.

Owusu-Danso’s key research objectives include examining the impact of access to credit from MFIs on poor households’ balance sheet; investigating whether MFI credit (its conditions and use) may contribute to households’ financial distress; assessing the impact of access to microcredit on intra-household inequality, specifically how men and women are affected differently by their access to credit from MFIs; and ascertaining factors influencing the high repayments of loans contracted from MFIs and how these relate to household productivity.

Owusu-Danso’s research is highly relevant for economic development policy in Ghana (and in other African countries as well) where a critical challenge to poverty reduction and gender equity is lack of access to finance. Her study makes a unique contribution to the literature in this area by investigating whether access to credit from MFIs may actually cause a financial burden on the poor households and therefore worsen, rather than improve, their well-being. Most of the research in this area has primarily focused on access to credit by the poor and by women. Her study is pertinent given the fact that MFI loans are generally much more expensive (higher interest rates) than loans from banks. Thus, MFI credit may not necessarily be an unmitigated blessing for the poor and for women. Owusu-Danso’s research will shed light on this important question.

UMass Amherst graduate student Daniel MacDonald is the recipient of a $5,000 William R. Waters Research Grant for his project, “Social Economics: Social Justice and Institutions in Historical Perspective.”

This is the second year in a row that a UMass Economics student has won this prestigious Waters award that is given to promising new faculty members who have not yet been granted tenure and for graduate students in Ph.D. programs who have not yet completed their dissertations. His focuses on Law, Labor, and Capitalism in U.S. History.

This recognition comes on the heels of the Horvat-Vanek Prize that MacDonald received for his paper, “Understanding the Sources of Productivity Growth during Industrialization: An Empirical Investigation of the Dynamic Properties of Piece Rate Contracts.”

Robin Kemkes and Avanti Mukherjee

After a competitive application process, Robin Kemkes and Avanti Mukherjee, UMass Amherst Department of Economics PhD students, were selected to attend the Advanced Graduate Workshop on Poverty, Development and Globalization in Bangalore, India from January 7-18, 2013. Sponsored by Azim Premji University, the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University, the workshop brings together students undertaking their PhD research from around the globe to discuss issues of international development and globalization from an interdisciplinary perspective. In addition to the daily student workshops, a speaker series including some of the world’s top scholars and practitioners of development will provide daily insights into some of the key challenges and opportunities in international development and globalization, from both a regional and topical perspective.

Daniel MacDonald

Daniel MacDonald, UMass Amherst graduate student, is the winner of the Horvat-Vanek Prize for his paper, “Understanding the Sources of Productivity Growth During Industrialization: An Empirical Investigation of the Dynamic Properties of Piece Rate Contracts.” The prize is awarded every two years for a research paper of exceptional quality written by a young scholar in one of the areas of interest to International Association for the Economics of Participation (IAFEP).

MacDonald’s paper uses data from a Massachusetts textile mill covering the period from 1834-1855 to better understand the economic history of industrialization. He argues that we must see this period’s strong labor productivity growth within the context of changing social relations at the mill. In the 1830s workers (who were mostly women from the rural New England countryside) often protested by reducing their effort when managers cut their piece rate. By the mid- to late-1840s, however, the women workers were more likely respond to wage reductions by increasing effort (and respond to wage increases by reducing effort). This surprising finding is, he argues, a sign of the transition to a wage-dependent workforce. This hypothesis is supported by statistical analysis as well as an analysis of the social history of industrialization.

Joo Yeoun Suh

Joo Yeoun Suh, PhD candidate in the UMass Amherst Department of Economics, is the recipient of a $10,000 Family Research Graduate Fellowship from the Center for Research on Families. With the funding she will be working with faculty mentor, Nancy Folbre, during the 2012-2013 academic year. Suh’s research is titled, “The Economic Value of Time Devoted to Raising Children and Caring for Elders.” Read more about the fellowship awards and the Center for Research on Families.

Charalampos Konstantinidis

Charalampos Konstantinidis, UMass Amherst graduate student, has received a William Waters Grant from the Association for Social Economics. Konstantinidis was awarded the $5,000 grant for his research proposal, “How Resilient Is ‘Green’? Organic Farmers in the Crisis of European Capitalism.”

The William R. Waters Research Grant was established in 1999 in honor of William R. Waters, editor of the Review of Social Economy for many years and President of ASE in 1987.  The grant was first awarded for Summer, 2000.

The purpose of the William R. Waters Research Grant Program is to inspire economists to organize their research in social economics and social economy along the lines suggested by William Waters in his 1988 presidential address to the Association for Social Economics.

The major concern of social economics is explaining the economy in its broadest aspects; that is, showing how human beings deal with the ordinary business of using human and physical resources to achieve a level of material comfort. Explanation includes cultural, political, and ethical details as they are needed for a full understanding. As in any economics, there are three parts to social economics. First is the philosophical base of the social economist, which may or may not be a reflection of the philosophical base or ethos of the society he/she is studying. Social economics (or any economics) builds upon it. It is the hard core as in the recent popular literature of the philosophy of science. The second part of the discipline is a description of the significant characteristics of the economy. The economist must observe the multiplicity of economic reality and abstract those characteristics that are substantive. The two together, the philosophical premises and the empirical observations, will determine the third part of the discipline, social economic policy. Policy formulation is thus a mix of the first two. [William R. Waters, presidential address, “Social Economics: A Solidarist Perspective,” Review of Social Economy, 1988, p. 113 ff.].