Ebonya Washington facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ebonya Lia Washington
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| Alma mater | Brown University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Economics |
| Institutions | Columbia University Yale University |
| Doctoral advisor | Sendhil Mullainathan Jonathan Gruber |
Ebonya L. Washington is a leading economics professor. She teaches at Columbia University. She also works on public and international affairs. She is a researcher at the National Bureau of Economic Research. This group studies important economic issues. In 2021, she became a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. This is a very respected group of smart people.
Her research looks at how people with lower incomes manage their money. She also studies how minority groups are involved in politics. Some of her research has been talked about in newspapers. She helps edit important economics journals. These include the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economic Studies. In 2021, she was chosen as a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Before joining Columbia, she was a professor at Yale University.
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Ebonya Washington's Education
Ebonya Washington studied at two well-known universities. She earned her first degree, a Bachelor of Arts, from Brown University in 1995. Later, she received her PhD in economics. She completed this advanced degree at MIT in 2003.
Key Research Projects
Why Did People Change Political Parties?
One of Professor Washington's important studies is called "Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?" She wrote this paper with Ilyana Kuziemko. They looked at old survey information from Gallup. This data showed how people in the South felt about race and politics.
They wanted to understand why many white people in the Southern United States stopped supporting the Democratic party. This big change happened in the second half of the 1900s. There were two main ideas about why this happened. One idea was that new civil rights laws made some white people leave the party. The other idea was that economic growth in the South made Democratic policies less appealing.
Professor Washington and Kuziemko found strong evidence for the first idea. Their research showed that white people who had certain views on race left the Democratic party. This happened between 1958 and 1980. This suggests that civil rights issues were a major reason for the political shift.
Making Economics More Diverse
Professor Washington is also very active in making the field of economics more diverse. In 2018, she became a co-chair of a special committee. This committee works to improve the status of minority groups in economics.
The committee has a website. It helps minority job candidates find work in economics. It also publishes a yearly newsletter. This newsletter shares information and resources. The goal is to make the economics profession more welcoming to everyone.
The committee runs programs to help Black people get into economics. These include a summer training program and a mentoring program. They also have a summer economics fellows program. Even with these efforts, in 2016, only a small number of PhD degrees in economics went to Black students.
Professor Washington has often spoken and written about the challenges faced by African Americans in economics. In October 2020, she and her co-chair, Gary Hoover, encouraged the American Economic Association to start new diversity programs. These programs include a special award for college students. They also offer travel grants for minority students. Plus, they provide money for economics departments to start their own diversity programs.
