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| Duncan Thomas, Professor
 Duncan Thomas is professor of economics, an affiliate of the Duke Global Health Institute, and holds a secondary appointment at the Sanford School of Public Policy. Before joining Duke in 2007, he was professor of economics at UCLA and director of the California Center for Population
Research. He has been senior economist at RAND and associate professor of economics at Yale University.
His research interests focus on population health and development. His work delves inside the black box of the family to provide empirical evidence on how resources are allocated within families in very low resource environments and highlights the role of female empowerment in improving the well-being of the next generation.
Understanding the mechanisms that explain why healthier people are richer is a theme that runs through much of his research. He implemented a large-scale randomized intervention in Indonesia and established the causal impact of poor nutrition on economic prosperity among adults.
Related research examines the impact of unanticipated financial shocks in Indonesia, Russia and the United States on health and well-being. The immediate and longer-term impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on a broad array of indicators of well-being are explored to identify the behaviors and coping mechanisms that are most effective in the aftermath of a devastating disaster.
Thomas has invested heavily in the design and implementation of large-scale population-based longitudinal surveys that contribute to the information infrastructure for scientific research. This includes co-directing waves of the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) and Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS). His work has emphasized measurement of health using biomarkers, innovative measurement of economic status and preferences and the importance of minimizing attrition in longitudinal
surveys. This includes following migrants who were interviewed in Mexico and have subsequently been interviewed in both the U.S. and Mexico to
better understand the causes and consequences of international migration.
Thomas' research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and the World Bank. His work has been published in such journals as the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Economic Journal, Journal
of the Royal Statistical Society, Demography, and the American Journal of Public Health. He is a member of the Committee on Population at the
National Academy of Sciences, was elected to the Board of Directors of the Population Association of America, Senior Fellow and President of the
Bureau for Research on the Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD) and he is Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development. He is a
co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics and has served as a co-editor of the Journal of Human Resources and Economic Development and
Cultural Change. He is on the editorial board of the American Economic Journal-Applied Economics and the Economics of Human Biology. - Contact Info:
Teaching (Fall 2009):
- ECON 185.01, ECONOMICS OF GLOBAL HEALTH
- Social Sciences 111, TuTh 08:30 AM-09:45 AM
- ECON 285.01, ECON OF GLOBAL HEALTH
- Social Sciences 111, TuTh 08:30 AM-09:45 AM
- ECON 380.11, INTERNATIONAL POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP
- Social Sciences 111, F 12:00 NOON - 01:00 PM
- ECON 395A.03, EMPIRICAL DEVELOPMENT
- Social Sciences 111, Th 06:00 PM-09:00 PM
Teaching (Spring 2010):
- ECON 380.11, INTERNATIONAL POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP
- Social Sciences 111, F 12 NOON-01:00 PM
- Specialties:
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Development Economics
Health Economics
Labor Economics
- Research Interests: Develolpment, Population and Family Economics; Global Health
- Keywords:
- economics of the family • health and development • intra-household resource allocation • impact of natural disasters
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