Sarah Babb (Sociology)

Promoted to associate professor with tenure

Ph.D., Northwestern University

Faculty member since 2003

Specialization: The sociology of economic policy, with a focus on Latin America

Representative publication: Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberalism (Princeton University Press, 2004)

“I spent time in Mexico on a scholarship in graduate school, and that’s when I got very interested in the issue of U.S.-trained economists in the Mexican government, who pretty much run the government. This is something you see in developing countries all over the world. Why is it so important that there be economists in these positions? Because they know more about running economic policy? Or is there a public relations thing going on to promote investor confidence? I’m not taking for granted that whatever is being done is being done because it’s right. I get a charge out of interviewing former finance ministers and so forth—it’s as close to power as I’m ever going to get.”