Susan W. Parker

Susan W. Parker is a professor in the School of Public Policy. Previously, she was a professor of economics at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City. Her research focuses principally on education and health in developing countries and in particular on the evaluation of programs and public policies. She has particular interest in the areas of conditional cash transfer programs and targeting. Her current projects include studying the causes and consequences of the rise in obesity in Mexico, the health impacts of public health insurance, and mobile banking in poor populations. She has recently received funding from JPAL’s Post-Primary Education Initiative to carry out a randomized trial on the effects of teacher training on student achievement in Sonora, Mexico.

She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from Yale University and a B.A. in economics and mathematics from Franklin and Marshall College. She is currently a research affiliate at the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania and at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). She edits the journal Latin American Economic Review (LAER).