Anita Tuvin Schlechter, 7 p.m.
Boosting Human Capital in Africa: Why It’s Needed, and How to Get It Done
Pascaline Dupas, Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University
Boosting Africa’s human capital—the health, knowledge, skills, and resilience of its people—is key to the fight against world poverty amidst climate change, but also to Africa’s ability to harness its demographic potential . The lecture will discuss evidence-based policies that governments and international organizations can put in place to do a big push on human capital on the continent.
This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Bechtel Lectureship Fund and the departments of international studies and economics.
Biography (provided by the speaker)
Pascaline Dupas is Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She joined the Princeton faculty in July 2023. She was previously the Kleinheinz Family Professor of International Studies at Stanford University, where she spent 12 years on the faculty. She has also held faculty positions at Dartmouth College and UCLA.
Dupas is a development economist studying the challenges facing poor households in lower income countries and their root causes. Her goal is to identify interventions and policies that can help overcome these challenges and reduce global poverty. She conducts extensive fieldwork. Her ongoing research include studies of education policy in Ghana, family planning policy in Burkina Faso, and government subsidized health insurance in India, among others.
She is the co-president of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), a board member and affiliate of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL), and a research associate at the National Bureau for Economic Research (NBER).
In 2013 she received a National Science Foundation CAREER award, awarded by the US government to recognize and honor outstanding scientists and engineers at the outset of their independent research careers. In 2015 she received the Best Young French Economist Prize, awarded to the French economist under 40 whose work is most influential. She is a fellow of the Econometric Society, a former Sloan Fellow, and a former Guggenheim Fellow.
Dupas studied philosophy and economics as an undergraduate student at the École Normale Superieure (Ulm). She obtained a Ph.D. in economics from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in 2006.
Bechtel Lectureship
Established in honor of emeriti faculty Joan Bechtel (Library Resources), who served Dickinson from 1971 to 1995, and the late Dan R. Bechtel (Religion), who served Dickinson from 1964 to 1995, to support Clarke Forum speakers and events regarding Africa.