A Global Classroom

Fulbright Awards to Two Economists

Tim Gindling took his to Costa Rica. Brad Humphries is carrying his to Prague. Both are professors in the UMBC economics department who won prestigious Fulbright Scholarships this year, enabling them to teach and conduct research abroad.

Gindling, who has written extensively on Costa Rican labor and wage issues, taught a graduate economics course at the University of Costa Rica focusing on poverty and income inequality. He also collaborated on a research project examining the impact of Costa Rica's trade liberalization policies on the distribution of income in that nation--one of the most controversial issues in the current international debate over "globalization" and free trade.

Humphries will be teaching at the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education in Prague, which is affiliated with the Czech Academy of Sciences. The center assembles an international faculty and offers a Western- style education in economics to students from nations in the former Soviet bloc, "where they did not teach much about how market economies work," explains Humphries. He will teach an advanced course in econometrics and help with a project putting economics information and educational materials on the Web.

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