Join us for the Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Economic Justice Virtual Symposium
I start this newsletter with comments from my colleague Gerald Jaynes:
The idea to hold Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Economic Justice Virtual Symposium originated in response to the global outcry against the public execution of Black American George Floyd. The display of naked state power and racial inequality as Mr. Floyd begged to be treated as a human being resonated with the desperate hopes of billions of people engulfed in their own struggles to endure and to simply achieve human dignity amidst a global pandemic whose deadly effects unmercifully exposed the vast inequalities in basic access to healthcare, water, and food security across our world. In the continuing wake of Mr. Floyd’s sacrifice, I am pleased to collaborate with Rohini Pande and the Yale Economic Growth Center to question the structural inequalities burdening humankind. The questions the Symposium addresses flow from my earliest days at Yale where interactions with the EGC introduced me to economists who helped frame my own understanding of the human condition and the potential of economic research to improve it. Economists with whom I talked and learned from during those days such as W. Arthur Lewis, T.N. Srinivasan, Lloyd Reynolds, Gus Ranis, John Fei, Carlos Diaz-Alejandro, Robert Evenson, Mark Rosenzweig and many others would each approve of the questions the Symposium asks: In what ways (if at all) have economic and political policymaking in developing economies been decolonized? What systemic economic inequalities generated by state action continue in poorer and wealthy countries alike? What role are ideologies based in the denigration of racial, ethnic, and gender groups assuming in the failure of nation states from Europe to the Americas and beyond to attack poverty? I hope you will be able to join us.
As Gerry notes, the urgency of the moment has moved us to organize this series of symposia starting October 28 featuring cutting-edge research on the human and economy-wide costs of discrimination based on race, ethnicity and gender – and paths to economic justice. We will focus particularly on what comparisons across countries teach us, and how we can ensure that we act.
We will also examine how these questions link to episodes in the past. At the time of EGC’s founding 60 years ago, scholars creating the emerging field of Development Economics argued over the scope and nature of research that would be part of this field. The opening session of the Symposium, titled The Decolonization of Development Economics: Early Voices from the Global South will focus on how academics from the Global South answered that question, and informed the foundation of the field of Development Economics. The panelists will discuss the work of Sir Arthur Lewis, Khadija Haq, Mahbub ul Haq, Akhter Hameed Khan, Joan Robinson, Amartya Sen, and others – and how their insights on the tangled relationship between poverty and inequality have particular relevance in today’s divided world. We will ask if the questions addressed by research – then and now – are informed by the preferences and wishes of those who will be subjected to the resulting policies.
That will be followed by morning and afternoon sessions on October 29 and November 5 featuring new research on topics such as affirmative action, the public sector and resource allocation, inequality and income support. Click on the links below to read details on the research we will feature. All sessions are open to the public, but advance registration is required.
Marking the 60th Anniversary of EGC and the launch of the Inclusion Economics Yale initiative, the Symposium represents an exciting confluence of different channels of research at Yale and beyond, speaking directly to today’s concerns. We hope you will join us.
Rohini Pande
Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics
Director, Economic Growth Center
Gerald Jaynes
A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Economics,
African American Studies, and Urban Studies
Register for the Symposium
- Opening Session, Thursday, October 28th - "The Decolonization of Development Economics: Early voices from the Global South": click here
- Session 1, Friday, October 29th - "The Public Sector and Resource Allocation": click here
- Session 2 (Morning), Friday, November 5th - "Inequality and Income Support": click here
- Session 2 (Afternoon), Friday, November 5th - "Affirmative Action and Resource Allocation": click here
