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SIPA Faculty
Mary M. Cleveland
Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs
Phone: 212-873-2982
mc2264@columbia.edu
Biography:
Mary M. (Polly) Cleveland is an economist and long-time activist for social justice.
She is the Executive Director of the Association for Georgist Studies (AGS), named for the great nineteenth-century American economist and reformer, Henry George. AGS seeks to bring George's ideas-and his questions-back into the discussion of scholars and writers in economics and other social sciences.
From 1994-2004 she served on the Board of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation (www.schalkenbach.org) and was President from 2003-2004. The Foundation publishes Progress and Poverty and other work by Henry George, as well as work influenced by George. From 1994-2001, she was the Director of Research at The Partnership for Responsible Drug Information (www.prdi.org), a non-profit that encourages open and well-informed discussion of drug policy.
Dr. Cleveland received a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984. Her dissertation, entitled Consequences and Causes of Unequal Distribution of Wealth, addressed George's basic questions in a modern model, showing how unequal distribution of wealth lowers economic productivity and growth.
She has worked as the controller of small family pharmaceutical company, taught accounting and computer systems at Rutgers University, and renovated and managed two small apartment buildings in Manhattan.
Website: www.mcleveland.org
Blog: Econamici