Economics

He will, he will rock you

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 13:11:59 +0000

He will, he will rock you Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/10/2024 - 07:11

Rachel Sauer

Pursuing a passion for music, CU Boulder economist Murat Iyigun transforms from recognized expert on economics of the family and economic history to regional rock star with a growing musical reputation

In a low-key pub and grill on a quiet street in Littleton, Colorado, it’s about 10 minutes to 8 on a Saturday night, and the renowned economist seems to be in six places at once.

He’s sound checking his guitar and finalizing plans with the light technician and joking with the singers and ticking through the set list with the drummer and donning a dusky green bomber jacket and wraparound shades.

The dance floor in front of the stage is empty for now, but it won’t be for long. At a little after 8, members of the steadily growing audience put down their forks and drinks to welcome—as they’d been invited, as the musicians had been introduced—the Custom Shop Band.

Murat Iyigun is a professor of economics focusing on the economics of the family and economic history.

A kaleidoscope of colored lights flashes from the rafters toward the stage as lead singers Amy Gray, Mckenna Lee and Abbey Kochevar begin an iconic refrain: stomp-stomp-clap, stomp-stomp-clap.

“Buddy you're a boy, make a big noise, playin' in the street, gonna be a big man someday,” Gray sings, achieving the stratospheric, Mercurian growl and grandeur of the original. “You got mud on your face, you big disgrace, kickin' your can all over the place. Singin'…”

The renowned economist leans toward his mic and joins the immortal chorus: “We will, we will rock you.”

It wasn’t so much a threat as a promise. For the next four hours, minus breaks between sets, the band founded by Murat Iyigun, a University of Colorado Boulder professor of economics and former economist with the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C., would rock everyone there.

And they would rock hard.

‘You should listen to Queen’

The question, then, is how does a scholar and economist widely known for his research on the economics of the family and economic history come to be on a pub-and-grill stage on a Saturday night, slaying licks originally conceived by Brian May?

“Life is funny, isn’t it?” Iyigun admits.

The story starts, as not many rock stories do, in Ankara, Turkey. The son of a Turkish father and a Turkish-American mother, Iyigun grew up during a tumultuous time in Turkey, when older kids might stop him on the street to ask whether he was a leftist or a rightist. Still, he says, he was lucky and maybe even a little sheltered, while some of his older sisters’ friends became victims of the left/right violence.

It was that violence, in fact, that caused his older sister’s university to be shut down for seven months. To continue her chemistry studies, she transferred to The Ohio State University, but not before leaving her LP collection to her younger brother.

“I was about 13, and I was counting the days to when she left in July because I was going to be getting all the LPs,” Iyigun recalls with a laugh. “‘Hotel California’ was huge that summer, and then there was Cat Stevens, ELO. I was totally captivated even though, compared to now, things were so closed for us. Going to the U.S. was like going to Mars. But in terms of music and Western culture, especially among urban secular Turks, we followed everything.

Murat Iyigun was inspired to learn to play the guitar after hearing Queen's album Live Killers. (Photos: The Custom Shop Band)

“Now you can get all the vinyls and they’re easy to come by, but at that time people basically made tapes that everyone shared around. There was all this bootleg stuff that would come from Europe, and someone in Istanbul would press some vinyls, but I was never sure if they had an agreement (with the record labels) or if those were counterfeit.”

At the tender age of 13, Iyigun was more into the mellow side of rock n’ roll. A few years deeper into his teens, however, and he discovered KISS. Visiting family in the United States during the summer of ’78—a time that might be considered the fever-pitch apex of the band’s makeup years—Iyigun acquired all things KISS: T-shirts, posters, tapes, you name it.

It might have been the following summer, he doesn’t remember exactly, that he went camping with friends and met one of the great platonic loves of his teenage years—an older girl who inadvertently changed his life.

“She said, ‘You should listen to Queen, they’re a great band,’” Iyigun recalls. “So, I asked someone to make me a tape of the Live Killers album, and that was it.”

It says something about what happened to him, listening to that album, that he currently has—in a glass case in his Boulder home—a replica of May’s immortal Red Special guitar, signed by May. Iyigun also bought Red Special replicas for both of his daughters.

He heard Live Killers and had to learn to play guitar, is the point. Then he and some of his friends, including an ambassador’s son whose presence allowed them to practice at the Swiss embassy in Ankara, formed a band. Iyigun absolutely loved it, but making it as a rock musician in a Muslim country in the 1980s started to strike him as increasingly impossible.

“I thought, ‘OK, I need to get my act together,’” Iyigun says, so he came to the United States to earn an MBA at Boston University and then a master’s and PhD in economics at Brown University.

His parents had given him a Les Paul guitar when he graduated high school and began studying business administration at Hacettepe University—“in Turkey back then you just didn’t have these instruments, so for my parents I know this was very costly,” he explains—and as a graduate student at Brown he bought an amp and noodled around at home.

The Custom Shop Band includes, left to right, lead guitarist Murat Iyigun; singers Amy Gray, Mckenna Lee and Abbey Kochevar; drummer Kevin Thomas; bassist Elliot Elder; and keyboardist Tone Show. Steve Johnson (not pictured) also is a member of the band. (Photo: The Custom Shop Band)

But then life happened. He was beginning his career, he had a wife and young children, he was working toward tenure, and he just didn’t have time to play, for more than a decade.

Then, about 15 or so years ago, at a time he was hardly ever playing guitar, his daughters and wife gave him the game Guitar Hero for Father’s Day. He played it a bit and realized the game console was an instrument in its own way, so with typical focus “I thought, ‘I need to learn to play it well,’” he says. “It’s nothing like guitar playing, but I thought I could learn to do this, and then I was thinking about how I used to play. And that’s when I brought out my guitar.”

Learning through blues jams

“Once I started to come back to it, I realized some of my fundamentals had gone,” Iyigun says. “So, I started by taking these baby steps. I immediately hooked up with a great music teacher, Jeff Sollohub, a Berklee (College of Music) graduate and super nice guy, and every two weeks I’d work with him on a new song, on composition and things like that.

“Within a year or two, I realized I’m only going to get so good if I don’t actually go out and play. By the time I came back to it, there were so many more resources online, YouTube and things like that, and I still got a lot of joy out of playing at home. But I quickly realized there’s a limit to how much I can improve unless I get out and play. That’s when I discovered blues jams, which are the easiest way to go play live even though blues is super difficult to play well.”

He went to multiple blues jams a month around metro Denver and endured the “painful, painful learning process.” A significant moment of clarity and focus came when he saw the parallels between being onstage playing and lecturing in front of a full classroom or at an economics conference.

“I had a lot of embarrassing days where the ride home would be miserable, and I did that for a couple of years, and I was discovering other jams and just kept playing,” he says. “The limitation of blues jams, though, is you pack all the gear, get in the car, drive 40 minutes, get on the list, then the person running the jam will put these bands together and you play for 20 minutes. So, I drove there an hour, waited an hour, spent this time to play 20 minutes—and 18 minutes of that was painful.

“But after doing that a couple years, this blues band of three guys needed a guitar player, and they’d seen me play, so they said, ‘Do you want to join a band?’ I joined for about a year, and there was this point where I’m like, ‘Yeah, this is what I want.’”

Inside, though, he was still the kid obsessed with KISS and Queen who knew all the guitar greats, not just the blues ones. He was treasurer for Mile High Blues Society, but he wanted to play rock.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GsmjeOjVPs]

Joining the band

The Custom Shop Band—the name is a reference to the custom guitars Iyigun plays—came together in a way that could be interpreted as either patchwork or destiny: friends of friends, acquaintances who know a guy, calls and emails that began with, “Hey, are you interested in being in a band?”

Elliot Elder, the Custom Shop Band bass player and a 2022 CU Boulder graduate in jazz bass performance, was recommended by a mutual friend. Amy Gray, the original in what is now a trio of lead singers, was recommended to Iyigun by another mutual friend:

“I was singing with another band and had recently left them when I got a message from Murat,” Gray says. “He saw me in a video from that band, and he said they were looking for someone to do backups and fill in when their lead at the time was not available.

“So, I looked them up, I went to a show to see what they sounded like and saw that they played some fun songs, that they as instrumentalists all sounded good, so I thought, ‘Why not, let’s give it a chance, they all seem very nice’ and I jumped in and went with it.”

Murat Iyigun joins in on harmony during the Custom Shop Band's set list of "hits, with a twist."

Gray recruited Kochevar, whom she knew from performing with her in theater, and Lee, who had recently moved to Colorado from California and whom she knew through mutual friends. And that’s how the Custom Shop Band has worked: Iyigun founded it and continues to act as band leader and manager, but in every other way it’s a democracy.

“Murat is an awesome band leader,” Elder says. “One of the reasons why a lot of bands don’t get past a certain point, in my opinion, is the band leader doesn’t have the flexibility and communication skills to manage situations where lineups change, things change on short notice, people have different ideas about how a song should be played. Murat’s emailing venues, scheduling gigs, managing lineups and all the while teaching at CU. He puts a lot of work into it. You meet a lot of people in the music scene who don’t communicate, who don’t get details to people on time, but Murat is definitely an exception.”

The band, which also includes Kevin Thomas on drums and either Tone Show or Steve Johnson on guitar and keyboards, practices in-person when adding a new song to the set list or a new musician, but otherwise its members practice at home with versions of the songs that Iyigun sends to everyone. In keeping with the band’s democratic ethos, every member brings song suggestions to the table.

At any given show, the Custom Shop Band may open with Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” and soon thereafter play “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus and “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls, which might be followed by a mashup of Foreigner’s “Jukebox Hero” and Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.”

On a Saturday night in September, at a pub and grill on a quiet street in Littleton, “So What” by P!nk gets booties to the dance floor in a joyful melee. A dude to the left is lost in his own world of intricate air guitar and a lady on the right has divested herself of shoes. A little later, as the band plays Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me,” the air guitarist to the left reaches a fever pitch as the band’s lead guitarist, who also happens to be a renowned economist, absolutely wails on the solo.

And transitioning smoothly into Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz,” the dancefloor still throbbing, the economist is grinning wide.

He will rock you.

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Free bus fare didn’t yield better air

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Free bus fare didn’t yield better air Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/29/2024 - 00:00

Sarah Kuta

New research by CU Boulder PhD student Grant Webster finds that the free-fare public transit initiative didn’t reduce ground-level ozone, but may have other benefits

Grant Webster is a big fan of public transit—he takes the bus multiple times a week from his home in east Boulder to the CU Boulder campus, where he’s working on a PhD in economics.

So, two years ago, when he heard about Colorado’s new “Zero Fare for Better Air” campaign, he was intrigued.

The premise was simple: During the month of August 2022, the state’s Regional Transportation District (RTD) waived fares for all bus and train rides. With this free perk, state leaders hoped to encourage Coloradans to leave their cars at home and take public transit instead. They expected this incentive to reduce ground-level pollution during peak ozone season.

CU Boulder economics researcher and PhD student Grant Webster found that the "Zero Fare for Better Air” public transportation campaign did not significantly reduce ozone pollution in Colorado.

As a bus rider, Webster was optimistic, too. But as an economist, he wanted to see the data.

“When they came out with this policy, I was like, ‘Hey, I ride the bus, I think that’s a cool idea,’” he says. “But I was also curious. Has anybody studied whether these policies actually work?”

Now, he has an answer to that question. “Zero Fare for Better Air” did not significantly reduce ozone pollution in Colorado, Webster reports in a new paper published in the journal Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice.

Using air pollution, weather, ridership and traffic data, Webster found that public transit ridership did increase during the month of free fares—by roughly 15% to 20%. But even though bus and train travel got a boost, car traffic volumes stayed roughly the same.

“The increase in ridership doesn’t seem to be reducing the number of cars on the roads,” he says. “It might just be transit users taking more rides, or people using RTD that weren’t going to take the ride to begin with.”

Informing policy

Roughly 2% of commuters in the Denver metro area use public transit as their main daily form of transportation—and the proportion is likely even smaller in other parts of the state. So, while public transit ridership saw a sizable bump percentagewise, this bump wasn’t enough to reduce ozone pollution.

For Colorado to see a 1% decrease in ozone pollution, public transit ridership would need to increase by 74% to 192%, Webster finds.

“Even if we had this big increase in ridership, it’s still such a small proportion of commuters, in terms of total pollution contributors, that we wouldn’t expect a huge decrease in ozone pollution overall,” he says.

“The transit infrastructure, the whole environment we live in here in Colorado … people are really reliant on their cars. You’d need a much bigger switch of people’s transit behaviors for this policy to be affecting overall air pollution.”

The findings are a bit of a bummer, but Webster says they’re important nonetheless. They could help policymakers use their limited dollars in different ways—ones that might be more effective at reducing pollution.

The “Zero Fare for Better Air” campaign was funded by Colorado Senate Bill 22-180 and brought back in 2023, but axed in 2024 due to cited budget constraints.

The “Zero Fare for Better Air” campaign was funded by Colorado Senate Bill 22-180 and offered in partnership with the Colorado Energy Office. RTD brought back the campaign for a second year in 2023 and expanded it to include both July and August, while Webster’s research was still underway. But, in 2024, it axed the program, citing state budget constraints.

Webster also points out that, while the campaign didn’t reduce ozone pollution as intended, it may have had other economic benefits, such as making public transit more affordable for low-income individuals or introducing new riders to the system.

Also, his findings only apply to Colorado, where overall ridership is relatively low. The picture might look very different in cities and states with more robust transit infrastructure and a higher proportion of public transit commuters, he adds. So, policymakers elsewhere shouldn’t completely rule out similar initiatives in their locales.

“In places like New York City or Washington, D.C., this type of policy might have completely different implications,” he says.

Consider other incentives

Overall, the findings suggest that, when deciding whether to drive or take public transit, the cost of the fare is not the most important factor in commuters’ decision-making process. And that’s an important takeaway: To change commuters’ behavior, policymakers may need to consider other, more compelling incentives.

You’d need a much bigger switch of people’s transit behaviors for this policy to be affecting overall air pollution.”

“When you talk about getting to work, there are so many factors at play,” Webster says. “What’s traffic going to be like? How far away is the bus station? How long do I have to wait? Can I leave in the middle of the day to go run an errand?”

More broadly, as policymakers look for novel ways to slow or halt human-caused climate change, the study also demonstrates the value of considering possible solutions through an economic lens.

“Economics provides a lot of good tools for studying these types of environmental policies,” Webster says. “Can we incentivize people to change their behavior and, as a result, change an environmental outcome? It’s a super important time to focus on the environment and our human impacts on it. And economics can play a role in studying these issues.”

Top image: Riders board a city bus in Denver. (Photo: RTD)

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New research by CU Boulder PhD student Grant Webster finds that the free-fare public transit initiative didn’t reduce ground-level ozone, but may have other benefits.

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For some women, STEM may not be the great equalizer

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 06:00:00 +0000

For some women, STEM may not be the great equalizer Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/17/2024 - 00:00

Chris Quirk

In newly published book, CU economics alumna Susan Averett analyzes whether STEM fields offer an equal path to prosperity for all women

When Susan Averett began her study of economics as an undergraduate, she recalls that the prevailing credo in the discipline was to adhere closely to the analysis of production, consumption and related topics.

That changed when she arrived at the University of Colorado Boulder to begin work on her PhD in economics. “I got really interested in the economics of gender, and (former faculty member) Elizabeth Peters, a true mentor in every sense of the word, was absolutely instrumental in that,” Averett says.

Peters taught courses in labor economics and economic demography that expanded Averett’s thinking. “It made me understand that economics can be used to look at questions like fertility, marriage and discrimination—things outside the purview of mainstream economics.”

CU Boulder economics alumna Susan Averett researches the economics of gender, with a focus on labor and health economics and gender outcomes.

What she learned about economics at CU Boulder informed Disparate Measures: The Intersectional Economics of Women in STEM Work, her recently released book written with Mary Armstrong.

Averett, now the Charles A. Dana Professor of Economics at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, has gone on to become a renowned scholar in the field of economic demography, which looks at how economic factors affect various groups of people in society. Her work to date encompasses labor and health economics, with a focus on gender outcomes.

In Disparate Measures, Averett and Armstrong analyze how different groups of women have fared in STEM fields, and whether the presumption that STEM jobs broadly present a pathway to prosperity holds up.

Well-documented pay gap

The pay gap between women and men in the workplace is well documented, Averett notes. A Pew Research Center report last year found that white women earned 83% of what white men earned, and Black and Hispanic women earned far less. And while the report stated that the proportion of women in managerial positions in STEM fields was on the rise, they are nowhere near parity with men.

Averett says the idea for the book was to analyze exactly how much women had benefitted from STEM employment—sometimes called the STEM premium—and to do it in a granular way, looking at subgroups of women to identify differences in outcomes for women in varied demographics.

“The idea is that STEM is being sold as this great equalizer for women, good for innovation and good for the economy,” Averett says. “We took a different tack, and asked what actually happens once women are in the workforce.”

In the book, Averett and Armstrong, whose field is women and gender studies, worked from the massive trove of economic and demographic data in the American Community Survey, which the U.S. Census Bureau generates from questionnaires sent to a large sample of households.

Disparate Measures analyzes how different groups of women have fared in STEM fields, and whether the presumption that STEM jobs broadly present a pathway to prosperity holds up.

Averett and her colleague wrote eight case studies on different subgroups of women, four on more standard demographics (Black women, American Indian and Alaska Native women, Asian and Pacific Islander women and Hispanic/Latina women), and four on groups of women not often separated out in studies of this kind (foreign-born women, women with disabilities, Queer women, and mothers).

The approach is what Averett calls an economic analysis of the population groups in an intersectional way, meaning that the study takes into account that people belong to more than one demographic group at the same time, such as women who are Black, or a men who have a disability.

“Everybody has different identities, and the idea was to make groups that have been invisible, visible,” Averett explains. “For example, with Black women, we looked at foreign-born Black women versus native-born Black women. With Asian women, we separate out Pacific Islander from AAPI, because they are usually grouped together.”

Inequality in the STEM economy

The results of the analysis are stark. Among Black women, 2.7% work in a STEM field, as opposed to 11% of white men. “In general, Black women as compared to white non-Hispanic men are poorly represented in the fields of engineering and STEM management,” Averett says. “Furthermore, Black women do not have wage parity with white men in any area of STEM work. They earn 75% of white men’s wages in STEM management, 76% in computer or math jobs, 78% in the physical and life sciences and 79% in engineering.”

In STEM-related occupations, such as medical fields, foreign-born Black women earn more than those born in the United States, across the board, she notes.

Averett says she hopes that this granular study will prompt policymakers and those who manage personnel in STEM fields to think equality in STEM. “Our use of an intersectional lens allows us to see that economic inequality is woven into the STEM economy. STEM wage gaps should be part of our thinking about how groups fare in STEM, but a continued focus on the STEM premium distracts from that.”

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In newly published book, CU economics alumna Susan Averett analyzes whether STEM fields offer an equal path to prosperity for all women.

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The U.S. labor market can affect ‘people who are not even here,’ research finds

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 18:47:56 +0000

The U.S. labor market can affect ‘people who are not even here,’ research finds Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/22/2024 - 12:47

Daniel Long

A recently published paper co-authored by Brian Cadena finds deep connections between the U.S. and Mexican economies

That the job market in Phoenix can affect a child’s education in Mexico may strain credulity, but it’s nevertheless true, according to a recent paper co-authored by Brian Cadena, a University of Colorado Boulder associate professor of economics.

People from specific regions in Mexico tend to migrate to specific regions in the United States, and when U.S. work dries up in some areas, those migrants tend to return to Mexico, Cadena and his co-authors, María Esther Caballero of American University and Brian K. Kovak of Carnegie Mellon, found.

Their paper, published in the Journal of International Economics in November, explores the U.S. labor market’s influence on the lives of people in Mexico by comparing how neighboring Mexican counties, or “municipios,” fared during the Great Recession.

Brian Cadena, a CU Boulder associate professor of economics, and his research colleagues explore the U.S. labor market’s influence on the lives of people in Mexico by comparing how neighboring Mexican counties fared during the Great Recession.

To perform their analysis, Cadena, Caballero and Kovak drew upon data from the Matrícula Consular de Alta Seguridad (MCAS), a governmental organization that issues identity cards to Mexican migrants.

Unlike either the U.S. or Mexican census, MCAS provides in-depth, granular information on migrant workers, specifying the municipios they leave and where in the United States they settle.

MCAS is a treasure trove, says Cadena. But it wasn’t long ago that researchers didn’t know how to use it. Cadena, Caballero and Kovak changed that with another paper they published in 2018, which validated the MCAS data and thereby opened up a whole range of potential research.

“This identity-card data really allowed us to drill down and make tight comparisons between municipios,” says Cadena.

The strength of networks

A key finding that emerged from the MCAS data is that people from the same municipio often move to the same cities and states in the United States. “People follow their networks,” says Cadena. And these networks are so strong that migrants from nearby municipios often end up hundreds of miles apart in the States.

Migrants from the municipio of Dolores Hidalgo, for example, tend to move to Texas, while those from nearby Jaral del Progreso generally relocate to Chicago, California and the Southwest. Same region in Mexico, different time zones in the United States.

The close proximity of the municipios is important for the kind of research Cadena, Caballero and Kovak are doing, Cadena explains, because it cuts down on confounding variables. Neighboring municipios experience the same weather, suffer the same droughts, follow the same or similar laws, etc., which means differences in their economic outcomes are likely due to something they don’t share—the job market in the cities and states where their migrants moved.

To unearth these differences, Cadena, Caballero and Kovak measured the job-market losses in the U.S. regions linked to each municipio and then compared the economic outcomes in the municipios connected to harder-hit regions to those connected to softer-hit regions.

As it happens, labor demand in Texas survived the Great Recession relatively unscathed, so the municipios of the migrants who ventured there remained stable. The American Southwest, however, suffered some major blows, and so the municipios connected to that region exhibited several changes.

(Un)expected observations

Some of those changes were unsurprising, says Cadena.

“One of the things we’re finding is how connected these two economies are," says CU Boulder researcher Brian Cadena of the United States and Mexico. On the one hand, the stark differences in what someone can earn and what the labor market looks like in one country as opposed to the other suggests that we have made the separation between those countries real and meaningful. On the other hand, we are certainly not islands.”

“When work dried up, more immigrants returned to Mexico, and fewer new immigrants came from that source community.” This then led to a fall in remittances, or money transfers from migrant workers to their families back in Mexico.

Yet Cadena, Caballero and Kovak also observed some changes they didn’t expect. One was that more women joined the Mexican workforce.

“This is called the added worker effect,” says Cadena. “When the primary earner of a household”—in this case, the migrant laborer—“loses their job, it’s a common reaction by the household to say, ‘Let’s send someone else to work.’”

Another unexpected change was a drop in school retention. “We found some suggestive evidence that a loss of jobs in the United States reduced investment in schooling in Mexico. We saw more schooling dropout, especially at transition ages, when kids move from one level of schooling to the next,” says Cadena.

Blurred lines and better choices

What do these findings suggest about the perceived separation between these two countries and their economies?

It makes that separation “a little fuzzier,” says Cadena.

“One of the things we’re finding is how connected these two economies are. On the one hand, the stark differences in what someone can earn and what the labor market looks like in one country as opposed to the other suggests that we have made the separation between those countries real and meaningful. On the other hand, we are certainly not islands.”

Realizing this, Cadena believes, could inform policymaking, specifically regarding immigration.

“When we’re thinking about immigration policy—when we’re thinking about all these things that affect the low-wage labor market—we are making policy that has a real and noticeable effect on the lives of people who are not even here,” he says.

“I’m not a politician, but I think that a more holistic sense of all the impacts of the choices we make as a country could help us make better choices.”

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A recently published paper co-authored by Brian Cadena finds deep connections between the U.S. and Mexican economies.

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Early childhood health interventions have ‘big, multi-generation impacts,’ research finds

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 16:01:04 +0000

Early childhood health interventions have ‘big, multi-generation impacts,’ research finds Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 03/06/2024 - 09:01

Daniel Long

Tania Barham’s research suggests that it doesn’t take much to give impoverished people a better start to life

It was the late ‘90s, and Tania Barham, future associate professor of economics at the University of Colorado Boulder, was in Yemen, working as an economist for the World Bank, which had teamed up with UNICEF to improve that country’s health, education and water.

Like the World Bank and UNICEF, Barham believed she was helping people, making a positive difference in their lives. But something was missing.

Much of CU Boulder researcher Tania Barham's work draws on data from Bangladesh.

“I had a moment where I’m like, ‘There’s almost no evidence,’” Barham recalls. “There was little data to understand if a project was successful or not in terms of development.”

It was a life-changing realization, one that convinced Barham to go back to school, earn her PhD and research how to bring people out of poverty over the long term.

Unique data

Much of Barham’s work draws upon data from Bangladesh.

In the ‘70s, Barham explains, the Bangladeshi government rolled out the Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning Programme (MCH-FP) in the Matlab area, a rural pocket of land just east of the Meghna River.

The purpose of this program was twofold: to provide a basic health care package for impoverished families—including family planning, nutritional rehabilitation and vaccinations—and to do so in a way that allowed researchers to study the program’s effectiveness.

“They wanted to see if this thing worked,” says Barham.

One way the program designers did this was by setting up a control area and a treatment area, so that different health outcomes between the two could be traced back to the interventions. Another was by keeping detailed records of the specific individuals and families who received the treatments.

“They kept regular demographic surveillance data, and then they would do census of the study areas every so often,” says Barham.

This surveillance data shows a number of things: if someone migrated or married, if someone died, if over time there have been any changes in household structure. And it goes deep.

“We could link everybody back to their original household from before the project began,” says Barham.

Residents of Kashadaha village, Bangladesh, visit the Kashadaha Anando school Oct. 12, 2016. (Photo: Dominic Chavez/World Bank)

So rich is this data that Barham and fellow researchers were able to conduct follow-up surveys of the treatment subjects starting in 2012, decades after MCH-FP began.

Barham wanted evidence, but this was more than she could have ever hoped for.

“This data doesn’t exist almost anywhere else.”

The effects

In a paper now under review, Barham and coauthors Brachel Champion, Gisella Kagy and Jena Hamadani explore the effects of MCH-FP on human capital.

Human capital, says Barham, refers to how equipped a person is to be successful in life. “It’s a person’s education. It’s their health. It’s their cognition. It’s their ability to solve problems. It can be social-emotional skills too.”

In other words, to improve a person’s human capital means to improve that person’s chances of escaping poverty or avoiding it in the first place.

Barham and her colleagues found that those in the Matlab area who received treatments showed increased height, a sign of improved health. They also found that kids in the treatment area exhibited improvements in cognition and, among the males, higher education and higher math scores.

But the most important finding, says Barham, was that these effects spanned generations. The second generation benefitted as much as the first. The human-capital gains were ongoing.

In another paper, this one published in December 2023, Barham and coauthors Randall Kuhn and Patrick S. Turner describe how MCH-FP affected migration.

Traditionally, many men in the Matlab region have migrated to Chittagong or Dhaka for work, or sometimes farther afield to countries like Qatar, where the higher-paying jobs are. But MCH-FP interrupted this narrative.

Students participate in school activities at the Sahabatpur Daspara Ananda school in Sahabatpur village, Bangladesh, Oct.12, 2016. (Photo: Dominic Chavez/World Bank)

“We thought we would find some traditional thing—you improve people’s education, and they go and get better jobs, and they still migrate to get them,” says Barham. “But that wasn’t the story we found at all. It was actually, I think, a more exciting story.”

Barham, Kuhn and Turner found that, instead of migrating, the Bangladeshi men were getting better jobs at home and therefore staying with their families.

“This is so important,” says Barham. “We see so much migration happening in the world right now, and here is an example which you almost never see of a program where people decided to stay.”

The big takeaway from both papers, says Barham, is that even a modest health package can have “big, multi-generation impacts.”

The big picture

Barham’s ultimate goal is to help those living in poverty, especially children.

“I care about people having the best start to life. Because if you don’t have a good start to life, it’s just that much harder to be successful later on.”

Now, propped up on decades of data and research, she hopes to spread the word and encourage investment in programs similar to MCH-FP.

“Good interventions help, and they accumulate,” she says. “We have to tell that story.”

Top image: Rozina (far left), comforts her nephew, Tanvir (center left), along with her mother, Shefali, in Dhaka, Bangladesh on Oct. 11, 2016. (Photo: Dominic Chavez/World Bank)

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Tania Barham’s research suggests that it doesn’t take much to give impoverished people a better start to life.

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Student undertakes global DIY climate action

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 21:23:00 +0000

Student undertakes global DIY climate action Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/17/2023 - 14:23

Clay Bonnyman Evans

CU Boulder senior Runzhe Li will attend major U.N. climate conference as independent scholar

Runzhe Li left his native Beijing for the University of Colorado Boulder in part because of his interest in nature.

In major cities around the world, people can “go to a national park, far off site, and it was more like travel,” says the senior, who is majoring in economics with a minor in atmospheric and oceanic sciences (ATOC).

“Here (in Boulder), we have such a good environment, with the nearby mountains and wildlife, the environmentally sensitive urban design and public policies worth learning from. By the way, Boulder is heaven for outdoor people.”

While he knew he wanted to study economics, he also was drawn by CU Boulder’s long-standing reputation in the natural sciences.

Runzhe Li, a CU Boulder senior studying economics, will attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP28, as an independent scholar.

“Having a hard-science background is important for environmental and economic research,” he says.

But it wasn’t until he visited the upper Amazon region in the past summer and witnessed firsthand Peru’s contrast between the natural environment and economic development that he realized he wanted to focus specifically on the intersection of climate science and economics.

“I took a four-hour boat ride into the primary jungle, and stayed there for half a month,” says Lee, as his American friends usually call him.

“I saw astounding starry skies and incredible wildlife, but it was hard to ignore the current state of limited economic development in that region of Peru. How to protect the environment while safeguarding the right to development is an area I hope to explore in the future.”

Now, Lee will attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference, aka COP28, as an independent scholar, from Nov. 30 through Dec. 12 in the United Arab Emirates.

“I am honored to attend such an important conference as a CU ATOC student, but I value the opportunity to interact with people around the world who care about climate issues in various fields—politicians, academics, multinational companies and organizations and the media. We know there are a lot of disagreements today, so we need to get to know what they are and know what the various stakeholders are thinking,” he says.

“I believe a balance can be created between the economy and the climate.”

The conference is being described as “a milestone moment when the world will take stock of its progress on the Paris Agreement,” the 2015 agreement within the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change addressing greenhouse-gas emissions mitigation, adaptation and finance. COP28 will “help align the efforts on climate action, including measures that need to be put in place to bridge the gaps in progress,” according to the United Nations.

Lee plans to visit a friend in the UAE, one of the world’s largest oil producing countries, before returning to Boulder.

“It’s the engine of the world, very important for industrial economics,” he says. “I grew up in China and then went to school in the U.S.—the largest demand side of the energy market. Now I want to go to the supply side and see how their business and society works.”

Once he’s back in Boulder, Lee will speak to students in an introductory course on climate change at the invitation of ATOC Associate Professor Jennifer Kay.

“I hope the information I bring back and my personal passion will help those freshmen students understand why we need (ATOC), and why we all need a stronger science background, and not just ideology,” Lee says.

“The timing is ideal for students (in the) introductory class. We focus the last two weeks of the semester on climate policy and solutions. I’m so inspired by our students,” says Kay, speaking of Lee.

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CU Boulder senior Runzhe Li will attend major U.N. climate conference as independent scholar.

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Why must we protect nature? Because we can, philosopher says.

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 16:11:08 +0000

Why must we protect nature? Because we can, philosopher says. Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/05/2023 - 10:11

Tim Grassley

In the book ‘The Wild and the Wicked,’ Benjamin Hale argues that because people have the unique capacity to care for the environment, they have a moral obligation to do so

2016 was especially hot. A strong El Niño event spiked global temperatures and made the year one of the Earth’s warmest on record, yet the heat did not inspire action from Congress, whose skeptical majority claimed that climate change was a hoax meant to diminish freedom and disrupt a stable economy.

In December of that year, while many environmentalists were producing studies of the economic costs and benefits of conservation, Benjamin Hale’s book The Wild and the Wicked presented an entirely different reason to care for the natural environment.

Hale contends that economic and value-based approaches to environmentalism—claims about nature’s beauty, intrinsic worth or market value—can provide a morally precarious basis for environmentalism. These arguments often assume that nature is inherently valuable and lovable—a portrayal that ignores the ways in which nature can harm humans and that much of humanity’s history has been spent keeping nature at bay.

“I am challenging what you might consider to be the status quo in the pro-environment discourse,” says Hale, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado Boulder. “Not because I’m anti-environment at all, but because I think that, to an extent, we in the environmental community fall easily into turns of phrase and ideas that otherwise go uninterrogated just because they are commonplace within our community.”

I’m trying to re-inflate a commitment to critical thinking and, ultimately, to democracy by suggesting that the burden is on us to offer justifications for taking actions, whatever they may be.”

Instead, Hale argues, people should care for nature because they are uniquely capable of doing so. When human beings are environmentally conscientious, they live up to one facet of their moral potential as human beings.

“I’m trying to re-inflate a commitment to critical thinking and, ultimately, to democracy by suggesting that the burden is on us to offer justifications for taking actions,” Hale notes, adding, “whatever they may be.”

When nature is wicked

Hale’s argument took shape when he worked as an environmental activist. While camping with other environmentalists, he heard many enthusiastically praise vistas and forests, as if this alone were the primary reason to protect nature. The praise, though, felt incomplete to Hale because he also thought about the harshness of nature—of mountain lions, forest fires and the steep drop of cliff faces.

At roughly the same time, he studied natural resource policy at the University of Arizona and worked on water policy in Washington, D.C., at the Congressional Research Service in the Library of Congress. Hale was disheartened to see that the democratic process boiled down to the pushing of individual agendas.

Those experiences helped him see the problem of environmentalists’ seeking to convince members of the public to protect nature either because it is sublime or contains valuable resources.

In 2004, he earned his PhD in philosophy from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and dove into research integrating the practical observations he’d made while working in environmental policy with the much more abstract conceptual insights in ethical and political theory.

The Wild and the Wicked, written by Benjamin Hale, is an exploration of moral obligation, expanding on the reasons why people should push through adversity and choose to protect nature.

Some of these observations grew into The Wild and the Wicked. In the book, Hale asks readers to observe the ways that nature can upend people’s lives by noting a series of natural disasters and bad events, some from his life and others more generally.

In the book’s first section, he sets the horrific 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami in the Indian Ocean beside the 1945 nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. Hale notes that both events caused equivalent, devastating human loss and economic damage, but to say they are the same ignores that the latter event was human-caused.

The distinction is important because, as an act of humans, Hiroshima can be understood as morally right or wrong. When environmentalists try to defend nature using value-based arguments (e.g., that conservation offers some economic gain or is fundamentally “good”), they overemphasize instruments of measurement.

Hale writes in his book, “If we think that we can pass judgment on an action simply by appealing to the end state of the world (or even the expected end state of the world), we become little more than moral mathematicians, assigning values of good and bad, better and worse, to possible outcomes. … The human project of ethics is reduced, then, to a simple actuarial project of crunching the numbers. If that’s the case, the mathematics of morality must be a funny math indeed.”

The book’s punchline is that the reason we should protect nature is because we are able to. It places the burden on the shoulders of each one of us to offer clear justifications to one another when making decisions about what to do. We need to have a clear discussion about what's permissible and what's not permissible.”

Hale steadily builds a case that human beings are uniquely able to care for the environment. Because they have the capacity to make judgments and decisions with clear justifications, people have a moral obligation to protect nature.

“The book’s punchline is that the reason we should protect nature is because we are able to,” Hale argues. “It places the burden on the shoulders of each one of us to offer clear justifications to one another when making decisions about what to do. We need to have a clear discussion about what's permissible and what's not permissible.”

Away from economic decision-making and toward a better democracy

Hale says he believes this shift in thinking would change environmental discourse. Rather than forming policies by weighing the intrinsic, extrinsic or instrumental interests of individuals or groups, people could choose the best policies through democratic processes, guided by a moral compass.

I'm laying groundwork for some form of democratic decision-making to take priority or precedence over economic decision-making, which is one of the preferred ways in which policy is set nowadays, and particularly environmental policy. What should have precedence is that discourse, that democratic discourse, and not the spreadsheet or the ledger of costs and benefits, which is the way that we often do it now.”

“I'm laying groundwork for some form of democratic decision-making to take priority or precedence over economic decision-making, which is one of the preferred ways in which policy is set nowadays, and particularly environmental policy,” Hale says. “What should have precedence is that discourse, that democratic discourse, and not the spreadsheet or the ledger of costs and benefits, which is the way that we often do it now.”

By emphasizing discussion and the capacity of communities to come to shared understandings, people can work democratically to bring about positive change. For Hale, this is a far more optimistic outlook on humanity’s ability to make morally right decisions. Rather than insisting that all people are inherently selfish, he says he believes they can come together and make decisions that improve their communities.

“It’s a problem to believe that democracy, well done, is just aggregating the wants of every person,” Hale says. “To be living in a democracy like we live in now, we should be making decisions about what’s good for the community, even if it flies in the face of some of the things that we want.”

“We need to act with reason that is good and justified.”

Top of page: Hale, an associate professor of philosophy, is the author of The Wild and the Wicked. Photo by Benjamin Hale.

In the book ‘The Wild and the Wicked,’ Benjamin Hale argues that because people have the unique capacity to care for the environment, they have a moral obligation to do so.

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In the 1950s, many wives financed their husbands through college

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 19:00:28 +0000

In the 1950s, many wives financed their husbands through college Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/20/2023 - 13:00

Jaxon Parker

A study co-authored by a CU Boulder economist reveals how young wives played a significant role in financially kick-starting their families during the economic prosperity of the 1950s, also opening the door to greater equality for women later in the century

The 1950s were marked by rising prosperity, as the U.S. economy grew rapidly and unemployment remained low. They are also remembered for strict gender roles: men as breadwinners and women as family caretakers.

But a study published recently in Journal of Labor Economics suggests that many wives provided for their husbands through college, freeing their families from the credit constraints of higher education.

Murat Iyigun, a professor of economics at the University of Colorado Boulder who co-authored the paper with Jeanne Lafortune of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, is interested in a phenomenon of the 1950s that has puzzled sociologists and economists: Why were couples marrying younger while men became more educated than women?

At the top of the page: While the University of Florida honored its male graduates, the University Dames recognized supportive wives with "Putting Husband Through" degrees in ceremonies like this one in 1960. Awarded for their "loyal support and unfailing patience," these women often worked and raised families while their husbands attended class. The Dames, sponsored by the University Women's Club, organized in 1948 and helped women learn skills needed for their husbands' future professions through monthly talks on everything from meat purchasing to home decor. The Dames later disbanded, but the Women's Club (faculty wives and female faculty members) continues today. (From UF Today, Winter 2009) Above: Professor Murat Iyigun's current interests of study are economics of the family, economic development and growth, political economy and cliometrics.

According to Iyigun, “the 1950s was an anomaly. The 1880s looks in some sense like now, because people used to get married later and the education levels between husband and wife were more comparable.”

Unlike other cultures, married couples in the United States are expected to move out of their parents’ homes and into their own, which can be expensive. In the poorer economy of the early 20th century, both spouses had similar but lower levels of education and often chose to put off their marriages until later in life.

“But the ’50s is the American heyday. It’s the golden era of the post-Second World War and there’s a huge American middle class. Housing became very cheap, which explains early marriages because younger people could afford it. And suddenly, the education premium for men rose,” Iyigun says.

On the flipside, financial returns for women receiving college degrees remained lower than for men.

“Besides other factors, discrimination kept the returns to schooling for women lower than those of men in the 1950s, ’60s and even the early ’70s,” Iyigun says.

However, later in the 1980s, “college and higher degrees started to pay off more for women.” With more women obtaining degrees alongside men by the late 20th century, marriages at later ages increased.

Sociologists and economists have offered different theories about how marriage timing and the educational gap between genders made the 1950s stand out. To solve this mystery, Iyigun created an analytical model that accounted for the changes in the start-up cost of marriage and tuition throughout the 20th century, and whether this generates an interaction between when couples married and became educated.

Comparing the model’s predictions with historical data, it successfully mirrored the trend of early marriages and wide educational gaps between genders in the 1950s, and showed that the pattern of later marriages and comparable education levels between genders returned in the late 20th century.

“Using our model, with a drop in home prices and an increase in the education premium for men, we now have couples who can marry early, and if it made sense for the husband to get an education, the wives typically supported them; they’re joining the labor force starting in the ‘50s,” Iyigun says.

For Iyigun, his model supports the claim that the 1950s was an exceptional moment in the economic and domestic history of the United States.

“It was a cultural phenomenon that even institutions recognized. Schools were having a separate diploma ceremony for the wives of men who were getting a degree, and their degree was called the PhT (Putting the Husband Through). They were congratulating women for supporting their husbands getting an education.”

“Even modern obituaries cite the PhT; it was something women were proud of doing,” Iyigun says.

It was a cultural phenomenon that even institutions recognized. Schools were having a separate diploma ceremony for the wives of men who were getting a degree, and their degree was called the PhT (Putting the Husband Through). They were congratulating women for supporting their husbands getting an education."

Although the PhT phenomenon was primarily an economic strategy to help husbands become educated sooner during marriage, Iyigun believes the fact that women were supporting their husbands through college laid the groundwork for the major cultural changes of the late 20th century.

Today, “the ’50s seems like a bygone era, but I think there’s a backdrop where the culture has shifted, and much of the family structure, men and women’s roles in the household, in the workplace and in society drastically changed in many ways for the better,” Iyigun says.

Iyigun, along with Lafortune and Paula Calvo of Arizona State University, are working on a paper investigating how divorce laws factored into the marriage age, education and economic trends of the 20th century.

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Economist finds sweet success with soda taxes

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 17:18:43 +0000

Economist finds sweet success with soda taxes Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/06/2022 - 10:18

Clay Bonnyman Evans

CU Boulder researcher finds soda taxes aren’t as regressive as previously feared and do decrease body mass index among non-white youth

The idea to place a “sin tax” on sugar-saturated drinks, such as soda, to combat ballooning obesity rates really took off in the 2010s.

European countries such as Finland and France placed taxes on the purchase of sugar-sweetened beverages, or SSBs, early in the decade. And in 2014, the city of Berkeley, California, became the first U.S. locality to levy a tax on SSBs. Six U.S. cities and dozens of jurisdictions around the world followed suit.

The theory behind such taxation is that higher prices will reduce consumption and yield health improvements given well-established links between SSBs and obesity, which has been found to contribute to weight gain, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney diseases, non-alcoholic liver disease, tooth decay and gout.

James Flynn, a graduate student in the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado Boulder.

But because the concept was relatively new, there was no research on whether soda taxes were actually making people healthier by, for example, reducing obesity or the incidence of Type 2 diabetes.

“There seems to be the potential for clear public health benefits,” says James Flynn, a graduate student in the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado Boulder. “But there have been concerns about this being a regressive tax on lower-income people, a lot of whom are people of color.”

Flynn was pursuing his master’s degree in economics at Drexel University in Philadelphia when that city enacted its “soda tax.” When he investigated the research on such taxes, he noticed that “none of them really answered the most important question: Are they actually making people healthier?”

So, he decided to search for an answer. Using what he calls “quasi-experimental methods,” he crunched data from the U.S. government’s semi-annual Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System from three cities with soda taxes—Philadelphia, San Francisco and Oakland, California—as well as control cities with no soda tax, and compared those data to reported body-mass index, or BMI, findings in the survey (Philadelphia was the only one of the three cities that had collected data about soda consumption).

“I tracked BMI from high school students. (BMI) is not a great measure and has problems, but I wanted to see if (taxes) resulted in changes, and I think it’s safe to say (BMI) is a fair proxy for public-health improvements,” he says.

His findings were published in September in the peer-reviewed journal Health Economics.

“I find reductions in soda consumption in Philadelphia and average body mass index in Philadelphia, San Francisco and Oakland, with suggestive evidence that the improvements are concentrated among female and non-white respondents in both cases,” he concludes in his research.

The declines in BMI were greatest among non-white females with higher BMI scores. The data for males, Flynn says, were “a little bit noisier, so it’s hard to make a strong conclusion.”

This research suggests there are some benefits being created (by soda taxes) that policy makers can use.

Still, his analysis suggests several important conclusions, he says:

Soda taxes help decrease consumption;
They are not as regressive as feared; and
His study points the way to studying the effect of soda taxes on such health concerns as diabetes and high blood pressure.

“Of course, this is just one paper, from one dataset, and I don’t want to overreach. But it does suggest there are some benefits being created (by soda taxes) that policy makers can use,” Flynn says.

Flynn, who will graduate with his PhD in economics in spring 2023, describes himself as an “applied microeconomist” who focuses on health and labor, particularly the efficacy of public policy interventions.

His paper with coauthors from the Colorado Fertility Project examining the effect of the Colorado Family Planning Initiative, which enabled tens of thousands of women to use long-acting, reversible contraception methods, on college-completion rates is pending publication in Health Affairs. He also has conducted research into how expanding access to contraception can reduce infant mortality rates and premature births.

“Giving more autonomy to women over their reproductive lives leads to reductions in some really scary outcomes,” he says.

CU Boulder researcher finds soda taxes aren’t as regressive as previously feared and do decrease body mass index among non-white youth.

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College announces inaugural class of social justice scholars

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 15:34:43 +0000

College announces inaugural class of social justice scholars Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 07/01/2022 - 09:34

This new program, headed up by the social sciences division, recognizes students that are taking a stand

The College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder is excited to announce the 2022 inaugural class of social justice scholars.

The social justice scholars program is a brand-new program that aims to elevate social justice as an orienting theme in the social sciences divisional work, demonstrating how different disciplines can effectively converge to tackle some of society’s biggest problems.

Up to ten undergraduate students (rising seniors) will be chosen on an annual basis to serve as social justice scholars their senior year. Each scholar will be awarded $5,000 that will become of a part of their financial aid package. Each year’s cohort will take part in social events and seminars throughout the year designed to build connections between each other, faculty in the division and members of the community engaged in related activity.

“Whether it was work for community organizations (both nationally and internationally), or service to fellow students at CU, this year’s social justice scholars have clearly defined a high level of excellence and achievement. What is more, their stories give hope that there is a very strong current of empathy, intelligence and energy directed at what we in the social sciences hold as a foundational goal: social justice,” said David Brown, the college’s divisional dean for the social sciences.

This year’s recipients are:

Aliya Trapp, international affairs and ethnic studies
Molly Fox, leadership and community engagement and sociology (minor in business analytics)
Rachel Hill, political science and mathematics (minor in philosophy)
Meenakshi Manoj, international affairs and economics
Shae Stokes, sociology and philosophy
Sibonelly Espitia Sanchez, sociology and psychology
Gabriela Mejia, cinema studies and ethnic studies (minor in leadership studies)
Peri Cooper, International affairs and theatre
Natasha Panepinto, political science (minor in Spanish)
Blen Abamecha, ethnic studies
Isla DePuy-Bravo, international affairs (minors in Spanish and political science)
Makayla Sileo, speech, language and hearing sciences (minors in sociology and leadership studies)
Maymuna Jeylani, ethnic studies and secondary education (minor in leadership studies)

For these students, the resounding response at being chosen has been one of excitement.

“I can't think of a better opportunity to finish out my time here than serving as a Social Justice Scholar. I am excited to see not only what this experience has to offer me, but to learn how I can leave an impact on both the program and the university and Boulder community that has given me so much,” said Panepinto.

Espitia Sanchez agrees, adding: “My studies have confirmed the frequent occurrence of everyday social problems, exposing just how cruel the world can be and how many victims of social injustices exist in all corners of the world. I’ve become incredibly inspired and determined to not only address social justice issues, but learn to contribute to their solutions during my time at CU.”

For those interested in applying for 2023, applications need to be submitted through AcademicWorks by May 14, 2023.

The application consists of a two-page, single-spaced letter explaining how your course of study, work in the community or interest and participation in addressing social justice issues forms an important part of your experience at CU Boulder. In addition to the written statement, provide an unofficial copy of your transcript. All applicants must have an overall GPA of at least 3.0.

The selection committee will be looking for students who have crafted a course of study that addresses social justice issues or have participated in related clubs, programs or organizations.

The selection will be announced by June 1, 2023.

Aliya Trapp

The Social Justice Scholars program seemed like an amazing and unique opportunity to get involved in activism within the Boulder community with my fellow classmates. Social activism has always been an important cornerstone in my life, and I knew this program would give me the ability to increase my knowledge on being more effective and having a greater impact. I am incredibly honored to apart of the inaugural year.

Molly Fox

As a transfer student to CU Boulder, I saw the potential for a social science degree to grow my formal training in social justice and elevate my understanding of my place in the issues that I want to pursue. As I continue engaging in social justice research, public action projects and volunteering through my senior year, I hope to only grow my motivation and fascination with how social systems function to produce such ill effects in society, and how those same systems hold the answers for sustainable solutions for the future. Excited for the ways I will grow and the people I will meet through this program!

Rachel Hill

Rachel Hill is a senior studying political science and math. Originally from Littleton, Colorado, she attended Columbine High School and started gun violence prevention work when she was sixteen. Since then, she has worked to lobby and testify for common sense gun legislation at local, state and federal levels. Following the Boulder King Soopers shooting, she has turned her passion toward helping her local community heal from the effects of gun violence. She is also currently serving as Student Body President here at CU.

Meenakshi Manoj

My name is Meenakshi Manoj, and I'm an international affairs and economics double major at CU Boulder. I'm excited to be part of the Social Justice Scholars program! I have previously worked with the Office of State Planning and Budget at the Governor's office in pursuing better equity goals in legislation. I'm currently hoping to establish a student organization on campus devoted to dealing with and combatting sexual assault on campus at large. I'm looking forward to the opportunities and connections this program will bring!

Shae Stokes

Hello! My name is Shae and I am a rising senior pursuing a double major in sociology and philosophy at CU Boulder, as well as a certificate in animals and society. Animal welfare is one of my greatest passions, both for its own sake and because animal agriculture is closely connected to numerous other social justice issues affecting people and our planet. I am honored to be able to further develop my skills as a social justice activist through this program!

Sibonelly Espitia Sanchez

As a sociology and psychology double major, I have developed passions to understand the world we live in and the individuals which inhabit it. My studies have confirmed the frequent occurrence of everyday social problems, exposing just how cruel the world can be and how many victims of social injustices exist in all corners of the world. I’ve become incredibly inspired and determined to not only address social justice issues, but learn to contribute to their solutions during my time at CU.

Gabriela Mejia

Gabriela Mejia is a film student based in Boulder, Colorado who is pursuing a BFA in Cinema Studies and Ethnic Studies with a minor in Multicultural Leadership.She works towards diversity and inclusivity both in front and behind the camera and casts women of color as leads in her films and is committed to working with a female-helmed crew.

Peri Cooper

My whole life, I’ve loved stories, from books to art to theatre. I loved the way that they can solve problems and create a world that doesn’t really exist in real life. I want to help make that a reality. We live in a world filled with prosperity and amazing things, but not everyone gets to experience those in the same way. For the world to become more equitable, that must start with us.

Natasha Panepinto

Social justice is something I have cared deeply about long before I arrived at CU Boulder. I was lucky enough to have parents who shared my passion and took me to marches and protests whenever they had the chance. Throughout my last three years at CU, I have continued to pursue this passion, taking every opportunity offered, despite the complications of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it was constantly changing and interrupting things, I was able to take numerous courses that gave me a better understanding of social justice and why we need it. These courses combined with my participation in CU in DC, establishment of the student organization Leading Women of Tomorrow, and service on the Appellate Court have given me an extremely memorable and meaningful experience at CU. That said, I can't think of a better opportunity to finish out my time here than serving as a social justice scholar. I am excited to see not only what this experience has to offer me, but to learn how I can leave an impact on both the program and the university and Boulder community that has given me so much.

Blen Abamecha

I am interested in the Social Justice Scholars Program because I want to be in a space alongside other scholars who not only want to make a change but are taking steps to end racial injustice by actively doing social justice work. As a Black woman in Boulder, I feel like this is a community where I would feel a sense of belonging and collaboration on campus which is really important to me. I love that we will also be working with alumni and leaders because I'd love to build connections with them and hopefully be inspired by the work they have contributed to their communities. I am excited to meet and form/strengthen relationships with other students in this program who have similar values as me.

Isla DePuy-Bravo

I was born and raised in North Denver to two very unique parents whose engagement with political/social issues inspired my interest in social justice issues from a young age. My studies at CU Boulder have aligned with and prompted further interests regarding socioeconomic injustices and inequities facing those less privileged than I. As the daughter of an immigrant from Central America, issues pertaining to immigration and the harsh realities faced by immigrants have led to my eager desire to develop the skills to advocate for those in vulnerable and unsafe circumstances. I am eager to continue my academic and life journey to make tangible improvements in the lives of others and feel that with the guidance and knowledge from the Social Justice Scholarship program I will be even better equipped to do so.

Makayla Sileo

My name is Makayla and I hope to spend my life seeing, listening, learning and advocating for those on the fringes of society. I love art, reading, writing, hiking, camping, being active and, most importantly, spending quality time with quality humans. My parents raised my sister and I to “leave the campsite better than we found it” and I believe this is how we make the world a more compassionate place. I cannot wait to take this idea and bring it to the Social Justice Scholars community.

Maymuna Jeylani

I was very interested in the Social Justice Scholar program because my experience at CU has been one rife with racial and social hardships and I think of my being at CU as an act of resistance in which there are many ways I engage in social justice. I'm interested in seeing how this program can engage me and help me address social justice problems, especially those with personal diasporic meanings as I am Black and Somali.

This new program, headed up by the social sciences division, recognizes students that are taking a stand

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