Michael Waugh, an Alaska native turned east coast academic, came to the University of Iowa to pursue his doctorate in economics. He had just one goal.
“I showed up here and wanted to be the top student in the first-year class, and I worked hard to make sure that I excelled,” Waugh said. “I was in the library until 2 in the morning every single day.”
While the UI economics program isn’t as highly ranked as those of other institutions he considered attending, this university in America’s heartland was the right place for him.
“I think Iowa was uniquely set up for the way I like to go about things. It’s a smaller program and it’s structured in a way that your first year is very intense,” said Waugh, who picked Iowa (ranked 34th by U.S. News & World Report, 2009) over Boston University (24), the University of Virginia (28) and Boston College (31). “(Iowa) wants to give you a bunch of tools about how to think about things. After that, in some ways, they turn you loose. Your first year is classes, then after that you start doing research.
“One of my strengths is being creative, and so it was good for me to be given the tools and have to start thinking about things. I just ran with it. I came up with some ideas. I started working on papers and I got encouragement from my advisors.”
With a box full of tools, Waugh earned his Ph.D. in economics in 2008. In March 2011, the UI Graduate College recognized Waugh with the Deans’ Distinguished Dissertation Award in social sciences for his dissertation, “Essays on International Trade and Economic Development.”
The main section of Waugh’s dissertation was published by the American Economic Review in 2010. Waugh examines why rich countries and poor countries do not trade, especially given the potential benefits for the poorer countries
“I very convincingly show how you can look at data and that the ability of poor countries to export their goods to rich countries’ markets is the key thing,” Waugh said. “Data says there are high barriers in the United States that prevent goods, like agriculture and textiles, which these countries specialize in, from being exported here. Europe has huge issues with this.”
Developing countries are likely to specialize in textiles, but Waugh said the wealthy people make it difficult for local producers to expand their businesses.
“They force producers to sell their stuff to an individual unit. It’s like a Co-op,” Waugh said. “That person then will see it at whatever price they want. There’s one monopoly in the country.”
Waugh currently is an assistant professor of economics at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He credits his training at the UI for helping him land a tenure-track position at New York University.
“People come out of Iowa and can get really good jobs at places like NYU,” said Waugh, who began his graduate career at Fordham University in New York, where he realized he wanted to study economics. “(Iowa) was a place you could go and get very good training and have a lot of potential to go and do a lot of different things. In many ways, it’s under the radar unless you know people who are more informed.”