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Stephanie Seguino

Professor of Economics, University of Vermont
Areas of Expertise:

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About Stephanie

Seguino worked as an economist in Haiti in the pre-and post-baby Doc era for USAID before obtaining a Ph.D. from American University in 1994. Sequino's experiences have shaped her interests in developing countries and issues of racial inequality, globalization, trade, macroeconomics, monetary policy, racial disparities in policing, the achievement gap, school discipline disparities, and living wages. Sequino has worked with the World Bank, UNDP, UNRISD, UN Women, UNCTAD, AFL-CIO and ITUC.

Contributions

Austerity Is Bad Economics

Publications

" Is More Mobility Good Firm Mobility and the Low Wage–Low Productivity Trap. Structural Change and Economic" Scribd 18, no. 1 (2007): 27-51.

Explores the possibility that unregulated FDI flows are causally implicated in the decline in labor productivity growth in semi-industrialized economies.  Effects are hypothesized to operate through the negative impact of firm mobility on worker bargaining power and thus wages. Pressures on wages can reduce the pressure on firms to raise productivity in defense of profits, contributing to a low wage-low productivity trap.

"The Costs of Exclusion: Gender Job Segregation, Structural Change, and the Labour Share of Income," (with Elissa Braunstein), December 2017.

Analyzes the cause of increased gender job segregation, with women excluded from good jobs in the industrial sector. Provides evidence that job segregation of this kind also harms men by lowering the labor share of income.

"Driving While Black and Brown in Vermont," (with Nancy Brooks), January 2017.

Analyzes traffic stop data by race for the state of Vermont. Discusses how the data is indicative of a pattern of racial disparities in stops, searches, and contraband.

"Critical Perspectives on Financial and Economic Crises: Heterodox Macroeconomics Meets Feminist Economics " (with Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and James Heintz). Feminist Economics 19, no. 3 (2013): 4-31.

Brings together various strands of analysis about the causes, consequences, and policy ramifications of economic crises, with a specific focus on distributional dynamics. Aims to facilitate a conversation between macroeconomic theorists of crises and instability and feminist economists and scholars of intergroup inequality.

"Monetary Tightening and the Dynamics of US Race and Gender Stratification" The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 71, no. 3 (2012): 603-638.

Explores the race and gender effects of monetary tightening in the US from 1979-2008 using state-level panel data. Shows the results which indicate the costs of fighting inflation are unevenly distributed amongst workers, weighing more heavily on black females and black males, followed by white females, and lastly, white males. Finds evidence that the relative unemployment costs of monetary tightening for subordinate groups vary with the black share of the population.

"Macroeconomics, Human Development, and Distribution" Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 13, no. 1 (2012): 59-81.

Discusses how under the right conditions, a more equitable distribution of income and opportunities in the form of human development can be a stimulus to growth, funding further investments in human development. Discusses how the development of policies to create those conditions is the central challenge for any human development-centered macroeconomic framework. Reviews some macro-level policies that achieve this goal, identifying a key role for fiscal policy to raise productivity and for monetary policy.