IICAS South Asia Studies Speaker Series Presents:

Sendhil Mullainathan
Professor of Economics
Harvard University

“The Mind Under Poverty: The Psychology of Having Less”

Thursday, May 19, 2011
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Eleanor Roosevelt College Admin Bldg (ERC), Room 115

Register at: http://iicas.ucsd.edu/speaker-series/registration.html

How does poverty affect the mind? Sendhil Mullainathan presents a new theory--and evidence--for how scarcity creates its own psychology. The framework builds on a principle referred to as "constraint focus". Empirical support comes from diverse data--from lab experiments on undergraduates in Princeton to field studies on poor farmers in Tamil Nadu. Constraint focus makes some stark predictions for he finds some support, e.g., that poverty reduces mental capacity. It also has implications for basic questions such as why the poor stay poor and how to shape anti-poverty policies.

Sendhil Mullainathan is a Professor of Economics at Harvard University and Director of ideas42, a center devoted to using behavioral economics to create novel policies. His research focuses on behavioral economics, consumer finance and poverty. He has published extensively in top economics journals and has received numerous grants and fellowships including a MacArthur Foundation 'genius grant'. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Founding Member of the Poverty Action Lab, and a Board Member of the Bureau of Research in the Economic Analysis of Development.

More info:
http://iicas.ucsd.edu/speaker-series/south-asia-studies.html

The IICAS South Asia Studies Speaker Series at UC San Diego is sponsored by the Institute for International, Comparative, and Area Studies (IICAS). IICAS promotes interdisciplinary research, discussion and information exchange on international, comparative, and cross regional topics.

Event questions:
iicas-events@ucsd.edu http://iicas.ucsd.edu