William A. Darity Jr.

William A. "Sandy" Darity Jr. (born April 19, 1953)[1] is an American economist and researcher. Darity's research spans economic history, development economics, and monetary theory, but the bulk of his research is devoted to inequality in the context of race.[2] In particular, for his 2005 paper in the Journal of Economics and Finance,[3] Darity is known as the 'founder of stratification economics.'[4][5] His varied research interests have also included the African diaspora, the economics of black reparations, group-based post traumatic stress disorder,[6] and social and economic policy as they relate to race and ethnicity.[6]

Sandy Darity
Born (1953-04-19) April 19, 1953
Norfolk, Virginia, U.S.
InstitutionUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Duke University
FieldMacroeconomics
Public economics
Economic stratification analysis
Alma materBrown University (BA)
London School of Economics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MA, PhD)
AwardsMarshall Scholar (1974)

He is currently the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy in the Sanford School at Duke University; at Duke he is also a professor of African and African American Studies, and Economics, and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity.[7] Previously he was the Cary C. Boshamer Professor of Economics and Sociology at the University of North Carolina.[8] Darity was a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors in 1984, and from 1989 to 1990 was a fellow at the National Humanities Center. He is a former President of the Southern Economic Association.[9]

Early life, education

William A. "Sandy" Darity Jr. was born in Norfolk, Virginia[10] and raised largely in Amherst, Massachusetts. His father, William A. Darity Sr., was a trustee at the University of North Carolina.[9] Darity Jr. graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree from Brown University in 1974, where he earned honors in economics and political science.[9] He was named a Marshall Scholar after undergraduate school,[8] and on the scholarship spent two years studying at the London School of Economics and Political Science.[9] In 1978 he completed a doctorate in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[6]

Academic career

In 1980, Dr. Darity became a staff economist in the research department of the National Urban League.[9] He began a long period as a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1983.[9] He was then a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors in 1984.[9]

Darity has served as a Director or on the board of a number of organizations. From 1989 to 1990 was a fellow at the National Humanities Center. He became a member of the American Economic Association's executive committee from 1993 to 1996, and in 1997 he was President of the Southern Economic Association.[9] He is also a former President of the National Economic Association.[6]

He has served as a professor at Grinnell College, the University of Maryland at College Park, the University of Texas at Austin,[9] Simmons College in Boston, and Claremont McKenna College.[6] From 2003 to 2005 he was a William and Camille Cosby Endowed Professor at Spelman College.[8] He has also either taught or served as a fellow at London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of Tulsa and the Centro de Excelencia Empresarial (Monterey, Mexico).[9]

Darity was awarded the 2012 Westerfield Award from the National Economic Association, their highest honor. Previous recipients include Nobel Laureate Sir W. Arthur Lewis, Phyllis Ann Wallace and Marcus Alexis.[11] He was also honored as the Lewis-Oaxaca Distinguished Lecturer at the 2016 American Economic Association's Summer Mentoring Pipeline Conference.

University of North Carolina

After joining the staff in 1983, Darity became the Cary C. Bohamer Professor of Economics and Sociology at the University of North Carolina[8] He taught economics and was a research professor of public policy, African and African-American studies, and economics.[9] He directed the economics department's undergraduate honors and graduate studies programs.[6][9]

In 2001 he was appointed Director of UNC's Institute of African American Research.[8][9] The institute's stated mission is "to help lead scholarly investigation into all aspects of black life, as well as public and private policies and programs affecting their lives."[9]

Duke University

As of 2012, Darity is the Arts and Sciences Professor of Public Policy in the Sanford School at Duke University.[6] He is also chair of the school's department of African and African American Studies and Economics,[12] research professor of their Public Policy Studies,[8] and director of their Research Network on Racial and Ethnic Inequality.[11]

Publications

Darity is editor-in-chief of the new edition of the 2008 International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences,[6] which is published by Macmillan Reference.[11] He has co-edited a number of books, including Boundaries of Clan and Color: Transnational Comparisons of Inter-Group Disparity (2003).[8]

He has co-authored books[9] such as the textbook Macroeconomics (1984)[9] and Economics, Economists, and Expectations: Microfoundations to Macroapplications (2004)[8] and has published more than 125 articles[9] in publications such as American Economic Review and the Journal of Economic Perspectives.[13] His research has also been featured on National Public Radio and PBS.[12] Dr. Darity co-authored From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twentieth Century[14]

Research

Focus

Darity's economic research has varied widely in topic, but many of his studies focus largely on economic stratification,[15] economic inequality, the labor market and "marriage market" outcomes, caste and race, disconnected youth, ethnic diversity and conflict, and job tenure versus work experience.[16] He has specifically studied financial crises in developing countries,[6] North-South theories of development and trade, and the Industrial Revolution.[8] He has also studied the trans-Atlantic slave trade, or what is called the African diaspora, the spread of African culture and influence through the slave trade. He has stated that much of the history wasn't documented or analyzed, and that there's a need to fill in gaps of knowledge and analyze cause and effect in modern times.[9]

As a social theorist and researcher, he has also studied social psychological effects of exposure to unemployment,[8] group-based post traumatic stress disorder,[6] schooling and the racial achievement gap, racialized "tracking" in schools, the economics of black reparations,[6] and social policy as they relate to race and ethnicity.[6] Recently he has focused on what he perceives as a "disconnect" between the social sciences and the humanities, particularly in the field of African American fictional literature and film.[10]

Notable studies

Incident reports

Darity was one of three conductors and writers of a study that found that white respondents tend to over-report incidents of mistreatment at work, while black employees are not aware of the mistreatment or are less likely to report them.[12]

Baby bonds program

With economist Darrick Hamilton, Darity has proposed a federal wealth redistribution program aimed at remediating the racial wealth gap.[17] Called the "baby bonds", the program calls for the issuance of government backed bonds for each child born into poverty to be redeemed when the child reaches 18 years of age.[18]

Skin tone and marriage

In 2009, Darity, along with Arthur Goldsmith and Darrick Hamilton, published "Shedding 'Light' on Marriage: The Influence of Skin Shade on Marriage for Black Females" in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.[12] The study found that American black women with lighter skin were more likely to attain a "high status black spouse" than darker-skinned women, and analyzed social theories that could explain the disparity.[19]

Unemployment rates

He has also been referenced by the media as an expert concerning Barack Obama's political strategies as related to unemployment ratings and economic policy.[20] Darity criticized Obama's October 2011 economic strategy as "bribing the private sector to put people back to work. I was hoping that there would be some effort to create a plan, there would be some effort to have a plan for direct job creation, where the federal government would directly put people back to work."

In February 2012 Darity responded critically through The Hill to a government report claiming that black unemployment in the United States had dropped from 15.8% to 13.6%. According to Darity, the drop was more likely the result of a massive spike in black workers dropping from the work force, and therefore no longer being included in the statistics for black employment. "If a large proportion of the persons exiting from the labor force were black, that could drop the black [unemployment] rate without any significant new employment," Darity wrote.[21]

In 2012 in response to the protracted economic crisis, Darity called for a federal jobs guarantee program called the National Investment Employment Corps, which would guarantee all U.S. citizens over the age of 18 a job at a minimal salary of $20,000, as well as $10,000 in benefits, including medical coverage and retirement savings.[22][23]

Personal life

Darity lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his family. He played harmonica in a local blues band.[6]

Partial publication history
  • Labor Economics: Problems in Analyzing Labor Markets (1992, editor)[24]
  • Macroeconomics (1994, co-author)[9]
  • Persistent Disparity: Race and Economic inequality in the United States since 1945 (1999, co-author)[25]
  • Boundaries of Clan and Color: Transnational Comparisons of Inter-Group Disparity (2003, co-editor)[8]
  • Economics, Economists, and Expectations: Microfoundations to Macroapplications (2004, co-author)[8]
  • International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (2007, editor-in-chief)[6]
  • International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences Volume 2: Cohabitation Ethics in Experimentation (2007, editor-in-chief)[26]
  • For-Profit Universities: The Shifting Landscape of Marketized Higher Education (2017, editor)[27]
  • From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twentieth Century (2020, co-author)[28]
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References
  1. "Darity, William A., jr., 1953-". Virtual International Authority File (VIAF). Retrieved 10 May 2014.
  2. https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2019/interview-with-william-a-darity-jr
  3. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226437749_Stratification_economics_The_role_of_intergroup_inequality
  4. https://equitablegrowth.org/equitable-growth-in-conversation-an-interview-with-william-a-darity-jr-sandy-of-duke-university/
  5. https://alumni.duke.edu/magazine/articles/sandy-darity-has-some-thoughts-about-inequality
  6. "William A. Darity". Duke University. Retrieved 2011-07-06.
  7. "Duke Scholars: William A. Darity Jr.". Duke University. scholars.duke.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
  8. "William and Camille Cosby Endowed Professors". Spelman College. Archived from the original on 2013-04-04. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  9. Toler, L.J. (July 26, 2001). "Darity to seek comprehensive agenda at African-American research institute". UNC New Services. Archived from the original on 2014-08-24. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
  10. "The Social Science of African American Literature and Vice Versa?". Africana Studies. William and Mary. February 24, 2011. Archived from the original on December 15, 2012. Retrieved 2011-07-06.
  11. Neil, Mark Anthony (December 20, 2011). "William 'Sandy' Darity Wins Prestigious Award from National Economic Association". NewBlackMan.com. Retrieved 2011-07-06.
  12. "CREE w/ William Darity, Ph.D." BlogTalkRadio. July 17, 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-06.
  13. "William Darity Publication History". Duke University. Retrieved 2011-07-06.
  14. "From Here to Equality | William A. Darity Jr". University of North Carolina Press. Retrieved 2020-03-09.
  15. "Faculty Profile: William A. Darity, Jr. on Stratification Economics and Leadership at Duke and Beyond". Sanford School of Public Policy. Duke University. 2015-06-23. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  16. "Economics: People". Duke University. Archived from the original on 2014-03-01. Retrieved 2011-07-06.
  17. Darity, William. "Can 'Baby Bonds' Eliminate the Racial Wealth Gap in Putative Post-Racial America?". The Review of Black Political Economy. vol. 37. doi:10.1007/s12114-010-9063-1.
  18. Hamilton, Darrick (August 14, 2009). "Race, Wealth, and Intergenerational Poverty". The American Prospect. Retrieved 2011-07-06.
  19. "Shedding 'Light' on Marriage: The Influence of Skin Shade on Marriage for Black Females". Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. Vol. 72. 2009. Retrieved 2011-07-06.
  20. "Obama to be in Triangle on Wednesday". The Herald-Sun. Durham. September 10, 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-06.
  21. Hicks, Kate (February 3, 2012). "Allen West: 'Is Someone Playing with Unemployment Numbers?'". TownHall. Retrieved 2011-07-06.
  22. "From Here to Full Employment: Darity" (PDF). PBS. Retrieved 2012-02-06.
  23. "National Jobs Corps to Fight Unemployment". CNBC. Retrieved 2012-02-06.
  24. Labor economics: problems in analyzing labor markets. Darity, William A. Jr. Boston: Kluwer Academic. 1993. ISBN 0-7923-9260-4. OCLC 26013947.CS1 maint: others (link)
  25. Darity, William A. Jr. (1998). Persistent disparity: race and economic inequality in the United States since 1945. Myers, Samuel L. Cheltenham, UK: E. Elgar Pub. ISBN 1-85898-658-3. OCLC 37315423.
  26. International encyclopedia of the social sciences. Darity, William A. Jr. (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA. 2008. ISBN 978-0-02-865965-7. OCLC 162146038.CS1 maint: others (link)
  27. Cottom, Tressie McMillan; Darity, William A. Jr., eds. (2017-04-03). For-profit universities: the shifting landscape of marketized higher education. Cham, Switzerland. ISBN 978-3-319-47187-7. OCLC 981463373.
  28. "William A. Darity Jr. | Author". University of North Carolina Press. Retrieved 2020-03-09.
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