EGC Quarterly Newsletter, Fall 2024
A history of providing refuge for independent-minded economists
2024 has been described as the global year of elections – and by the time we began the 2024 academic year over 25 national elections had occurred. In some countries, new elections have already been called.
In Bangladesh this August, an interim government was sworn in, led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus. This followed student-led protests against the previous authoritarian regime over the summer, a violent crackdown, and the ousting of the government. In September, EGC affiliate Mushfiq Mobarak convened students, civil society activists, researchers, and policy leaders at Yale to discuss the way forward, which will include a new election.
Mushfiq’s efforts follow a long tradition of Yale economists engaging in Bangladesh and supporting movements toward freedom and economic justice around the world. A mentor of Muhammad Yunus, Nurul Islam, was the architect of the economic rationale for Bangladesh’s independence movement from United Pakistan in the 1960s and 70s. When war broke out and his life was at risk, Islam found refuge at Yale and intellectual support for his ideas among the founding team of EGC. “My father immediately had a family there," said his daughter Roumeen Islam, in an interview for our profile, which we publish today. Roumeen Islam is the Senior Economic Advisor to the Managing Director of the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group.
Around the same time, EGC also served as a safe haven and intellectual home for Latin American economists – some having been forced out of their positions in their home countries by repressive regimes. These included Celso Furtado and Carlos Diaz-Alejandro; and EGC now provides support for Latin American graduate and postdoctoral scholars at Yale in memory and celebration of the life and work of Diaz-Alejandro through the endowment fund established by a circle of friends and donors in his name.
As we set out on Academic Year 2024-25, we look forward to serving as a forum for forward-thinking economic ideas through our teaching, research, events, and by hosting visitors from around the world. We hope you will join us.
Rohini Pande
Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics
Director, Economic Growth Center
EGC Voices in Development
Events
Insights for policy and practice to reduce gender gaps
Why do gender gaps in employment opportunities and outcomes persist in countries around the world, how can policy close them, and what do women and economies stand to gain? This summer, EGC researchers convened policy-research dialogues in Accra, Ghana and Delhi, India to help answer these questions. The events were organized by the EGC's Gender and Growth Gaps project and Inclusion Economics, in collaboration with in-country partner organizations.
Celebrating the multidisciplinary contributions of Professor Naomi Lamoreaux
In May EGC brought together esteemed economists, historians, law experts, and policy experts to celebrate the career of Naomi Lamoreaux. Charting the Future of Economics, Governance, and Economic Development in the United States and Beyond was a mini-conference examining the future direction of multidisciplinary research in history, economics, and public policy.
EGC Affiliate Spotlight
Mayara Felix
Mayara Felix is an EGC Faculty Affiliate beginning in the 2024-25 academic year.
Growing up in a working-class family in Brazil, Mayara Felix benefitted from a policy that enabled her father to get work as a security guard. Now, as an incoming Yale Department of Economics faculty member, she is conducting innovative research to quantify the economic benefits of that policy – domestic outsourcing – on workers and the labor market.
Meet the EGC Postdoctoral Associates for 2024-25
Read about the exciting research being conducted by incoming EGC postdoctoral scholars across a wide range of fields.
IDE Master's Program
Applications are now open for the 2025-2026 academic year. Learn more about the program and apply here.
Recent Publications
EGC Research
Attanasio & Meghir on the impact of targeting high school scholarships to the poor in Mexico; Attanasio et al. on preschool quality and child development in Colombia; Attanasio et al.’s presidential address to the Econometric Society; Caliendo et al. present a model of a small open economy with product differentiation; Goldberg & Khandelwal on the US-China trade war; Mobarak et al. on how refugees in Bangladesh are hosted in highly vulnerable communities; Neilson et al. on the effect of colleges’ participation in Chile’s centralized higher-education platform; Neilson et al. on the effect of providing parents with information on school quality in Haiti; Pande et al. on the long-run impacts of a liquidity shock in India; Pande et al. on how public information incentivizes politicians to increase pro-poor spending; Pande et al. present experimental evidence of Saudi women’s take-up of unemployment assistance.