Washington Center for Equitable Growth Awards UMass Economists Dube and Bassier a Total of $65,000 for their Respective Research Projects

The Washington Center for Equitable Growth has announced that Arindrajit Dube, professor of economics, and Ihsaan Bassier, doctoral candidate of economics, have received grants totaling $65,000 to support their respective new research projects on economic inequality and growth. 

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Dube, along with colleagues Suresh Naidu and Adam Reich of Columbia University, received a $50,000 academic grant for the 2021 academic year for their project, “Power and Dignity in Low-Wage Labor Markets: Evidence from Wal-Mart Workers.” The project will survey Walmart workers about hypothetical job offers, with random wage draws, to estimate the quit elasticity. Dube will then ask how amenities other than wages at the job affect quits, scaling those factors into a money-metric valuation of different amenities. He will then zoom into “dignity at work” as a specific type of amenity and will test whether minimum wages may affect amenity provision by firms.

Bassier is the recipient of a $15,000 doctoral grant for the 2021 academic year for his project, “Sectoral Bargaining and Spillovers in Monopsonistic Labour Markets.” He will investigate the increasing evidence of monopsony power in labor markets, which has implications of lower wages and higher inequality. Using data from South Africa, his project will study the effect of “sectoral bargaining,” collections of trade unions and employers representing specific industry-regions that consultatively bargain over and set minimum wages and working conditions for those industry-regions. Bassier believes this research could give insight into how sectoral bargaining could improve worker power and mitigate the effects of monopsonistic labor markets.

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The Washington Center for Equitable Growth is a nonprofit research and grantmaking organization dedicated to advancing evidence-backed ideas and policies that promote strong, stable and broad-based economic growth. The awards given to Dube and Bassier are part of research grants totaling $1,392,795 awarded to 62 grantees to generate evidence on the ways that inequality affects economic growth and stability. Equitable Growth noted that 2021 – the organization’s eighth cycle of academic grantmaking – set a record for the largest funding year to date. Since its founding in 2013, Equitable Growth has seeded more than $7 million to more than 250 scholars through its competitive grants program. The organization’s grant program is open to researchers affiliated with a U.S. university, and its doctoral grants are open to graduate students currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program at a U.S. university.

Full descriptions of the 2021 grants and a profile of each grantee, including those of Dube and Bassier, can be found on the Equitable Growth website.