Lewis S. Davis

Assistant Professor of Economics
Pierce Hall 107
Smith College
Northampton MA 01063

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Background:

I joined the Smith College faculty as a visiting Assistant Professor of Economics in the Fall of 2001. I received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1999, with fields in Development Economics and Econometrics, and a BA in Mathematics from Davidson College in 1988. I previously held positions at the University of New Hampshire and SUNY-Oswego. I will be joining the Economics Department at Union College in the Fall of 2006.

More information regarding my professional life is available on my CV.

Teaching Interests:

My teaching interests include microeconomics, mathematical economics, international trade and economic growth. Click on the links below to see recent syllabi from my courses.

Eco 150 - Introductory Microeconomics

Eco 255 - Mathematical Economics

Eco 295 - International Trade and Commercial Policy

Eco 301 - Economic Growth and World Development

I have also taught undergraduate courses on Introductory Macroeconomics, Intermediate Microeconomics, International Economics and Development Economics, and a doctoral-level course on Economic Growth.

Research Interests:

My primary research interests involve the role of political and institutional factors in economic growth. The main line of my research explores the links between institutions, market transaction costs, the division of labor and economic growth. Recent papers, available below, address the roles government, firms, cultural ties and legal institutions in facilitating growth. Other work addresses the institutional determinants of informal sector participation and income inequality, and the role of international trade in uneven development. I am currently working on an empirical paper on the determinants of income inequality.

Book:

Associate Editor for Development, Princeton Encyclopedia of the World Economy, edited with Ramkishen S. Rajan, Kenneth A. Reinert and Amy Glass, Princeton University Press, 2008.

Published Research:

“Market Transaction Costs in Industrialization and Demographic Transition,” Pacific Economic Review, 2007, forthcoming.

“Growing Apart: The Division of Labor and the Breakdown of Informal Institutions,” Journal of Comparative Economics 34(1), March 2006.

“Trade, Growth and Uneven Development: A Critical Survey,” (with William Darity, Jr.) Cambridge Journal of Economics 29(1), January 2005, 141-170.

“Toward a Unified Transaction Cost Theory of Economic Organization,” Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 159(3), September 2003, 571-93.

“Does the Market Recognize IT-Enabled Competitive Advantage?” (with Bruce Dehning and Theophanis Stratopoulos), Information and Management 40(7), August 2003, 705‑716.

“The Division of Labor and the Growth of Government,” Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 27(7), May 2003, 1217-1235.

Working Papers: These papers are works-in-progress. Please do not cite without permission.

“Explaining the Evidence on Inequality and Growth: Informality and Redistribution”

“Scale Effects in Growth Theory – A Role for Institutions”

“Institutional Flexibility and Economic Growth”