Welcome to personal my web page… This Spring 2020 I am teaching both World Poverty and Inequality ECON 3240 and Migration and Development: A Social Justice Perspective (ECON 3248). I have taught ECON 3240 World Poverty since the 1990s (books? the 1980 WDR on Poverty… then the 1990 WDR and the first Human Development report published by UNDP (implementing Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach). For the U.S. we read Poor Support by David Ellwood and the Truly Disadvantaged by William Julius Wilson. A new course, ECON 3248 focuses on the role of rural-urban migration and international migration in promoting diversity and development. This year my graduate IPED course Crises, Adjustment and Poverty (ECON 5450) almost vanished. Previous to 2019 we had global financial crisis every 10 years or so, almost like clockwork. I remember apologizing to my class, as I did not see any GFC on the horizon, we decided to focus only on Argentina, Zimbabwe and Venezuela… Suddenly in mid February many at UNDP and UN DESA’s worst fears: how countries and international agencies can protect the poor during crises, natural and financial, and perhaps more important how vulnerable groups can become more resilient. The two courses overlap with forced migration driven by conflict or natural disasters (as is almost everywhere now, but then Puerto Rico, the Sudan, Somalia, the Sahel). Up until COVID-19 most developing countries were growing nicely, except in Latin America, especially Venezuela where I worked during 1995-97 just as their phone company was privatized, before Hugo Chavez was elected. I am also working with a group at the World Bank focused on the CFA Zone countries, a number of which are in crises including the Congo. Our DACA benefit last year was well timed, as it turns out, we raised funds for DACA renewal and travel.
For videos, lecture notes and course materials click the 3248 or 5450 tabs. My Economics department page.
Fall 2017 office hours: Office E527 Dealy Office hours: Monday 5:30-6:30pm and Thursday 9:30-10:30pm or by appointment (mcleod@fordham.edu)
Classes: ECON 3235 meets in 318 FMH and ECON 6470 meets in 202 Dealy at 7:30 Elitza’s China Forecast
Research: My research focuses on growth and development in Africa and Latin America. In particular on policies that affect poverty, inequality and social mobility. I am currently working on papers related to Diasporas in the Bronx and migration from Latin America with Alfredo Cuecuecha and Norma Fuentes. I am also part of a team working on a World Bank sponsored project on the CFA Zone with two Fordham PhD students. We are also updating a paper on real exchange rates and economic growth coauthored with Elitza Mileva. I highly recommended is the 2015/2017 UN DESA WESS report on Resilience and Climate Change for which I served on an expert review panel, it is a very provocative and informative report. My Latin America research with Sumaya Al Brahim, Nancy Birdsall and Nora Lustig focus on the effect of accelerated growth and redistribution via social programs on inequality and social mobility in Latin America. Inequality and Mobility: Gatsby in the Americas for example, focuses on how how transfers and social spending affect inter-generational mobility in Latin America. Similarly, our survey Declining Inequality in Latin America: Some Economics, Some Politics coauthored with Nancy Birdsall and Nora Lustig focuses on the success of various new political regimes in reducing poverty and inequality in Latin America. (Center For Global Development Working Paper #251 published in the Routledge Handbook of Latin American Politics). During 2008 to 2010 I co-directed a survey of recent Mexican immigrants living in New York who send remittances to Mexico. This extensive household survey was one of three Packard Foundation financed surveys on remittances and financial development sponsored. UCLA-NAID Teams conducted similar surveys of Mexican immigrants in Durham, North Carolina and the Venice-LA area. The common focus of these surveys is how remittances and mobile technologies affect financial inclusion and savings in the U.S. In 2006-2008 Dr. McLeod worked as a consultant to UNDP’s Poverty group and contributed to UNDP BCPR’s 2008 report Post-conflict economic recovery. UNDP (both the Poverty Group and BCPR) the World Bank (several divisions), Global Insight, WEFA’s and Lehman Brothers’s Latin America Group, the Inter-American Development Bank (pre-2000 labor market reforms in Venezuela), CEPAL in Mexico City and the OAS.
Publications by Area (click v to expand):
Inequality, Social Mobility and Poverty:
Sumaya Ali Brahim and D. Mcleod (2016) “Inequality and Mobility: Gatsby in the Americas” Modern Economy 7:5 643-55.
Sumaya Ali Brahim and D. Mcleod (2015) Inequality and Social Mobility: Gatsby in the Americas, paper presented at the Mobility in the Americas Conference, April 24th 2015 sponsored by the Espinosa Yglesias Research Centre &Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, Inst for Research in the Social Sciences, Alta Road Stanford CA.
Fuentes, Norma, Sumaya Ali Brahim and D. Mcleod (2015) Gender and Mobility: Gatsby in the Americas, presented at the Fordham-Ibero Conference on Living Wages, Fordham University, July 21st 2015, Fordham University.
Nancy Birsdall, Nora Lustig and Darryl McLeod (2013) Declining Inequality in Latin America: Some Economics, Some Politics – CGD Working Paper #251 05/19/2011 now published in the 2013 Routledge Handbook of Latin American Politics, Peter Kingstone and Deborah J. Yashar, eds. March 7th 2013, Routledge, NY.
Darryl McLeod and Nora Lustig “Are Latin America’s New Left Regimes Reducing Inequality Faster?” Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Latin America Program, with Nora Lustig, July 2009.
“Tracking Monitoring MDG 1 Poverty reduction in Middle Income Countries: Bulgaria, Moldova, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico” 2007 prepared for UNDP-BDP Poverty Group, Oct 2007.
“Is poverty increasing in Bangladesh? Reconciling national and international estimates” report prepared for UNDP-BDP Poverty Group, November 2007 (revised).
How fast did Developing Country Poverty fall during the 1990s? : Capabilities-based tests of rival estimates” Economics Letters, 90 (2006) 297-303.
Nora Lustig and Darryl McLeod (1997) “Minimum Wages and Poverty in Developing Countries: Some Empirical Evidence” with Nora Lustig in Edwards, Sebastian and Nora Lustig eds., Labor Markets in Latin America, Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C. 1997
Labor Markets and Post Conflict Recovery
Darryl McLeod and Maria Davalos (2007) “Post-Conflict Employment, Recovery and Poverty Reduction” paper prepared for UNDP-BDP Poverty Group, October 2007.
Consultant for principle contributor to the UNDP-Bureau of Crisis Prevention and Recovery, Chapter 4 of Post-Conflict Economic Recovery, UNDP, New York, 2009.
Nora Lustig and Darryl McLeod (1997) “Minimum Wages and Poverty in Developing Countries: Some Empirical Evidence” in Edwards, Sebastian and Nora Lustig eds., Labor Markets in Latin America, Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C. 1997
Social Innovation and Community development
Darryl McLeod (2005) “Turning Diversity to Advantage: Promoting Community Based Fair Trade and Entrepreneurship in Gillis, Nancy and Sean Southey (2005) A Community Dialogue for Meeting the Millennium Development Goals, Fordham University Press, New York.
Darryl McLeod (1976) Urban-Rural Food Alliances: A Perspective on Recent Community Food Organizing, in Richard Merrill, ed. Radical Agriculture (Chapter 12) Harper Collins,
Real Exchange Rates, Trade and Capital Flows
Darryl McLeod and William Gruben (2004) “Currency Competition and Inflation Convergence” paper Latin American Economic Association Meetings ,in San Jose Costa Rica, November 4-6.
“Choosing Among Rival Poverty Estimates: Some Tests for Latin America” presented at LACEA annual Meetings, Universidad de las Américas, Puebla (UDLAP),Mexico, October 2003
Darryl McLeod and William Gruben (2004) “The Openness-Inflation Puzzle Revisited”, Applied Economics Letters, 2004,11, 465-468 (lead article).
“Capital Account Liberalization and Inflation” Economic Letters,77, October 2002, 221-25.
“Capital Account Liberalization and Disinflation in the 1990s” coauthored paper presented at the 2000 Rio LACEA meetings and Center for Latin American Economics Working Paper #0104.
with Bill Gruben (1998) “Capital Flows, Savings and Growth in the 1990s” The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Fall 1998, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 287-302.
“The Costs and Benefits of Fixed Dollar Exchange Rates in Latin America” with John Welch Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, 1st Quarter 1993.
“Capital Flight” entry in the Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics, Time Warner, NY, 1993 now available online as the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.
with John Welch (1993) “Exchange Rate Uncertainty and Economic Growth in Latin America” Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Research Paper #9338 (coauthored with John Welch), March 1993.
with John Welch (1991) “Real Exchange Rates and Investment Booms in Latin America” in Proceedings of Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas North American Free Trade Conference July.
with Parantap Basu (1991) “Terms of Trade and Economic Growth in Developing Economies” Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 37, No. 1, November 1991, pp. 89-110.
Migration and Development
Juan Molina and Darryl McLeod, 2007 Remittances, Inequality and poverty Reduction in Latin America, presented at the Eastern Economic Association Meeting, February 24th, New York City.
with William Gruben (2006) “Apparel Exports and Education: How Developing Nations Encourage Women’s Schooling” Dallas Federal Reserve Bank Economic Letter, Vol. 1, No. 3 March.
“Apparel jobs for Women: Ladder up or poverty trap?” (2005) w/ Rosendo Ramirez, Maria Davalos & Bill Gruben, presented at LACEA/IDB/WB Network on Inequality and Poverty (NIP) México, UDLA Puebla July 8-9th 2005.
Theory: Resources, Trade and Debt
with Bill Gibson (1983) Non-produced means of production in Sraffa’s system: basics, non-basics and quasi-basics, Cambridge Journal of Economics
Vol. 7, No. 2 (June 1983), pp. 141-150 Oxford University Press