The Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has embarked on a faculty hiring initiative focusing on three key areas of contemporary economic analysis: (1) public goods and the common good; (2) economic opportunity; and (3) power, institutions, behavior and economic performance. We intend to make multiple appointments; rank and salary will be commensurate with qualifications.
In this initiative, we seek to build on the Department's worldwide reputation as the premier center for research and teaching in heterodox economics. We remain committed to fostering a broad range of analytical perspectives, drawing on diverse paradigms. We aim to respond to the growing openness in the economics profession - and the demand from the public - for innovative approaches to economic theory and policy.
In our teaching, research and public service, we aim to build capacity to meet new economic challenges in an era of transitions. These include the transition from a global economy dominated by a few powers to a multi-polar world; from an economy based on fossil fuels to one based on renewable energy; and from economic philosophies that center exclusively on free markets to broader conceptions of the economy in which the public sphere is again recognized as crucial, and growing inequality is regarded as a problem rather than a correlate of progress.
Scholars from all fields of economics and related disciplines are encouraged to apply, including those engaged in inter-disciplinary work. We are particularly interested in scholars whose expertise involves theoretical or applied work related to the following emphases:
1. Public Goods and the Common Good. The Department seeks scholars who study economic theory and applied economics as these relate to multiple dimensions of human well-being and social welfare. In addition to the growth and distribution of income and wealth, we are interested in analyses of the non-market provision of goods and services. These goods and services include environmental quality, care for children and elders, open-source knowledge, scientific inquiry, and public health.
2. Economic Opportunity. The Department seeks scholars who study how economic opportunities are generated and distributed in society. We are interested in these questions at levels of analysis ranging from the family and the community to the regional, national, and global economies. We seek scholars whose research and teaching interests address such issues as social justice and inequalities; networks and information; education and skill acquisition; immigration policies; the macroeconomics of full employment; and the microeconomics of discrimination based on gender, race, or ethnicity.
3. Power, Institutions, Behavior and Economic Performance. The Department seeks scholars who study how power and institutions influence the economic behavior and the performance of the economy as a whole - and how economic behavior and performance in turn impact the distribution of power and the dynamics of institutional change. We are interested in how people behave not only as individuals but also as members of groups - groups defined, for example, on the basis of class, gender, race, or ethnicity - and in how group identifications affect political economy, the design and implementation of public policies, and propensities for conflict and cooperation