Lewis S. Davis

Assistant Professor of Economics

Department of Economics, 211D Social Sciences Building, 807 Union Street, Schenectady, NY 12308

518-388-8395, davisl@union.edu

Office hours Tuesday 2-5 and by appointment

Ph.D. UNC-CH, 1999. BA, Davidson College, 1988.

Curriculum Vitae

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Teaching

Teaching Interests: My teaching interests include the economics of growth and development, microeconomics, and mathematical economics. Most recently, I have developed a course in the economics of sin that address the economics of ethically complex markets. The course includes sections on the markets for transplantable organs, cigarettes and the economics of addiction, illegal drugs, and the market for sex. The development of this course was supported by a grant from the Rapaport Everyday Ethics Across the Curriculum Program at Union College.

Course Syllabi: Introduction to Economics, Intermediate Microeconomics, Economics of Sin, Seminar in Economic Growth and Development, Senior Thesis . Additional course materials are available to enrolled students through blackboard. Other professors are welcome to use this material in course development, but please let me know if you do.

Research

Introduction

Alphabetical List of Entries

Topical List of Entries

Directory of Contributors

Research Interests: My primary research interest involves the role of political and legal factors in economic growth., including papers on the division of labor, income inequality, intellectual property rights. More recently I have become interested in culture and economic development including the role of ethics.

Editorial Work: I served as an Associate Editor for the Princeton Encyclopedia of the World Economy, edited with Ramkishen S. Rajan, Kenneth A. Reinert and Amy Glass, published by Princeton University Press, 2009. Click on the links to the right for information about the Encyclopedia.

Refereed Journal Articles:

· “Do All Countries Follow the Same Growth Process?” with Ann Owen and Julio Videras, Journal of Economic Growth, forthcoming.

· “Teaching the Economics of Sin” Teaching Ethics, forthcoming. (Invited article)

· “Scale Effects in Growth Theory: A Role for Institutions,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 66(2), 2008, 403-419.

· “Explaining the Evidence on Inequality and Growth: Informality and Redistribution,” The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics 7(1), (Contributions), Article 7, 2007.

• “Market Transaction Costs in Industrialization and Demographic Transition,” Pacific Economic Review, 12(1), 2007, 79-99. (Invited article)

• “Growing Apart: The Division of Labor and the Breakdown of Informal Institutions,” Journal of Comparative Economics 34(1), March 2006.

· “Trade, Growth and Uneven Development: A Critical Survey,” (with William Darity, Jr.) Cambridge Journal of Economics 29(1), January 2005, 141-170.

· “Toward a Unified Transaction Cost Theory of Economic Organization,” Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 159(3), September 2003, 571-93.

· “Does the Market Recognize IT-Enabled Competitive Advantage?” (with Bruce Dehning and Theophanis Stratopoulos), Information and Management 40(7), August 2003, 705‑716.

· “The Division of Labor and the Growth of Government,” Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 27(7), May 2003, 1217-1235.

Working Papers: These papers are works-in-progress. Please do not cite without permission.

· “Institutional Flexibility and Economic Growth” Under review.

· “Institutional Foundations of Inequality and Growth” with Mark Hopkins. Under review.

· “Are Lawyers Good for Growth?” with Fuat Sener, in preparation.

Contributions to Edited Volumes:

· “Technological Progress, Economic Growth.” In: Darity, William A. (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA. 2008.

· “Development Economics” In: Darity, William A. (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA. 2008.

· “Development” In: Reinert and Rajan (Eds.) Princeton Encyclopedia of the World Economy, 2 volumes, Princeton University Press, 2009.