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Studying Emerging Markets: “Because Someone Needs It”
During 2008 – 2009, more than three dozen students at SIPA completed projects under faculty supervision for the U.S. Treasury Department, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. They completed the projects as part of a class, for academic credit, but also in the words of one student, “because someone needs it.” This kind of hands-on learning experience is a central part of a SIPA education.
The projects were arranged through Sara Calvo’s course “Investment Climate in Emerging Markets,” utilizing her extensive experience with the World Bank Group and other organizations. Professor Calvo calls the course a “hybrid workshop,” because it combines regular teaching with a project for a partner institution. The students all received a grade for their projects, but many were asked by their clients to continue their work on the projects.
Most of the students began their projects with a visit to Washington, D.C. to meet with their advisors in the U.S. Treasury Department and the International Financial Corporation of the World Bank (IFC). Their tasks involved analyzing various aspects and challenges of emerging markets, including property rights in China, credit in India, domestic debt in Brazil, macro-financial vulnerabilities in Chile, and much more. There were no field visits to the nations – most of the research was conducted online.
"Explaining and describing the policy making process is always a challenge,” said Maria Belen Avellaneda (MIA ’09). “However, doing it in the epicenter of the most important financial crisis and together with U.S. Treasury officials is something really unique."
“It’s a tremendous opportunity for the students to not only work on a project that would have lasting impact, but also to develop a relationship with their client,” says instructor Sara Calvo. “It’s the chance to develop mentors that can shape a student’s work for years to come.”
About half of the students worked on projects for publication in the IFC’s annual collection of case studies Doing Business: Celebrating Reform 2009. One of those case studies analyzed how China is attempting to boost domestic consumption to make up for the loss in exports during the financial crisis.
“We analyzed whether the property rights of China are enabling the Chinese people secure asset ownership,” said Pelin Tekin (MIA ’09), who has continued to work with the World Bank on the project after it was submitted. “We found that in spite of legal reforms, implementation is weak, so it hurts the Chinese people’s and foreigner’s incentive to invest.”
Rocio Mora (MPA ’09) studied fiscal responsibility in Colombia for the Inter-American Development Bank. “It was a challenging topic because there are not enough statistics and I didn’t know much about fiscal rules, even though I am from Colombia. We were working on a real case doing research and it definitely prepares us for our future jobs.”
“It’s great to take a practical approach to a project and be able to condense it down to a few pages,” said Helen Harris (MIA ’09), a native of Brazil who worked for the U.S. Treasury Department on an analysis of currency bonds in her home country. “The Treasury Department even offered a critique of our work, which will be a great help as we conduct this kind of research in the future.”
Meanwhile, students from Sara Calvo’s spring course “Financial Issues in Latin America” also put in some time for the World Bank Institute. They worked on case studies on Policy Responses to Economic Shocks and presented their work in Washington, D.C. in April 2009.
To read the case studies from Doing Business: Celebrating Reform 2009, click here.
06/12/2009