Marjorie B. McElroy became a professor for the economics department at Duke University in 1970. She held the chair position of the economics department until 2002. She has also been a visiting professor at the Universities of Virginia, Illinois, and Chicago. Before becoming a professor, she spent a year at Bell Laboratories after receiving her Ph.D. from Northwestern University. She has spent a majority of her career as a professor at Duke University, however, and her dedication to her students is exemplified by her serving on several graduates’ dissertation committees, and by her reputation for holding “the highest standards of excellence” in her classroom. Marjorie’s teaching and research explores the areas of labor economics, family economics and, specifically, the “interplay of bargained family decisions and marriage markets.” She has conducted research on the economics of families residing in China, and has used her findings to help separate the repercussions of government policies from those of economic growth within the country. Much of her studies have been supported by grants awarded by the National Science Foundation. Marjorie’s published research and articles have appeared in such esteemed journals as the Southern Economic Journal, the American Economic Review, the International Economic Review, the Journal of Labor Economics, and many more. She has presented her ideas and research to various academic associations and meetings, including the AEA meetings in 1994 and, in 2000, meetings of the Institute for Research on Poverty’s Working Group in 1994, at an international conference on “Changing Family Structure,” and at an AEA roundtable on “Economics and the Family.” She also gave the presidential address at the Southern Economic Association annual meeting in 2001. Aside from her duties as a professor, Marjorie is also active within the professional community of economics. She has served on the National Science Foundation Panel in economics, and was once Vice President of the American Economic Association. She has been a member of The American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, is currently the President of the Southern Economic Association, and was a part of the Board of Directors and the executive committee for the National Bureau of Economic Research. She has also been the director for such academic meetings as the Labor Workshop and the Labor Lunch. Recently, she joined the editorial board of Feminist Economics.
| Office Location: | 319 Social Sciences |
| Office Phone: | (919) 660-1840 |
| Email Address: | |
| Web Page: | http://www.econ.duke.edu/Econ/Faculty/Users/mmcelroy.html |
Teaching (Fall 2009):
| PhD | Northwestern University | 1969 |
| B.A. | Pennsylvania State University | 1965 |
| no degree | Douglass College | 1962 |
Professor McElroy focuses her research on the subjects of labor, demand systems, and financial economics. She has completed several of her research projects under the funding provided by National Science Foundation grants, including her latest work on the economics of the family in relation to bargain decision-making and marriage markets. She is also currently investigating altruism in marriage markets and bargaining on the core in marriage markets. She has also completed studies involving the investigation of international populations, such as her work with D. Yang on, “Carrots and Sticks: Fertility Effects on China’s Population Policies.” She has collaborated with her contemporaries on several projects, including her earlier work with Hwei-ju Chen, R. Gnanadesikan, and J.R. Kettenring entitled, “A Statistical Study of Groupings of Corporations,” and her project with T.J. Kniesner and Stephen Wilcox on, “Family Structure, Race, and the Feminization of Poverty.” One of her recent published studies, which she completed independently, is entitled, “What’s New with Nash-Bargained Household Demands?”