Recipients of PSC Small Grant Awards

Title: PSC Predoctoral Small Grant in Support of Two Research Projects

Brief Description: Grant support research assistants (RA) on two projects: 1) Effects of Overlap in the School and Farming Calendars on Education – RA contacted African ministries of education to collect official, daily, pre-pandemic school calendars; and 2) Colonial conscription and the political economy of French West Africa — RA digitized data on colonial conscription collected from the Senegalese National Archives

James Allen: Graduate Student, Population Studies Center.
Graduate Student, Department of Economics, Rackham.

PSC Mentor: Dean Yang

Research Interests:  James is interested in questions relating to economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly around education, health, and natural disasters. Given projected trends in population growth and climate change, I believe that the next 50 years will bring about rapid change to the region, giving economic research there a clear normative and positive aim: to promote economic development for the poor while advancing our understanding of humanity’s transition from an agrarian to industrial society.