Kiera McGuire
Features Editor
Sitting down in Morgan 213 with Melanie Long, associate professor of economics and business economics, I learned about her interest in feminist economics and wealth gaps, as well as research and publications within economics. Long shared advice for current and prospective students as well, and hopes to promote multidisciplinary aspects of economics degrees. Note that the interview has been cut for space.
KM: Can you introduce yourself to our readers?
ML: My name is Melanie Long. I’m an associate professor in the economics and business economics department. I use she/her/hers pronouns. I am actually from Nampa, Idaho, which is a suburb of Boise. I went to undergrad in Salt Lake City, Utah, at a liberal arts college called Westminster University and did my graduate studies at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.
KM: What drew you to Wooster?
ML: It was that liberal arts undergraduate experience. I had a really transformative experience [at Westminster], loved the small classes and discussion-based classes. I was encouraged to think in disciplinary ways. I loved being at college and learning. I also liked the idea of teaching, and I got to do some teaching and tutoring while I was in undergrad. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to be somewhere where there was more of a focus on teaching as opposed to just research. Wooster offers a really nice balance of those two things, because we mentor students and their research through I.S. and we keep up with our own research agenda, which is something I’m excited about.
KM: What is some of the current research you’re doing?
ML: Some of my research is on economics education, primarily online economics education, which goes back to the stuff I was working on as a grad student. My other strand of research is in household finance with a focus on racial and gender inequality. When I was in undergrad, we were coming out of the 2008 financial crisis, and at that time, we saw that debt matters, right? Households got into a lot of mortgage debt and collapsed, not to mention the debt held by investment banks and some of the biggest players in the economy. That really got me thinking about the role of debt in our economic system, both the vulnerability it creates for households when they’re reliant on borrowing to meet their daily needs to have housing, and when there’s any kind of shock, like losing a job or an unexpected media expense. I also look at the types of gaps we see and the inequalities in our economy. They aren’t explainable by things like income or access to education or any of these observables — there are these structural and historical factors that shape this. When we look at wealth gaps, for example, they’re even wider when we look at women of color as opposed to white men and white dual-headed households. The most recent work I’ve been doing is looking specifically at how U.S. monetary policy affects some of these gaps. When interest rates go up, economic activity tends to go down – and that’s something that’s economy-wide, so some people think it has nothing to do with race or gender or inequality. To some extent that’s true, but there’s actually a bunch of reasons to think that the same increase in interest rates affects everyone differently based on their exposure to economic risk. Black and African American single women might experience some of the greatest burdens of increasing interest rates. In absolute dollar terms, those with the highest wealth, who tend to be white and dual-headed households, experience bigger increases than decreases, because they have more wealth to lose or gain.
KM: What would you say to a student or prospective student who wanted to major in economics?
ML: Awesome, first. It’s a really cool major because there’s so much you can do with economics. A lot of folks think that it’s about money or finance or renting a business, but it can be about all those things and more, like what determines people’s health and longevity in an economy or how people deal with climate change and racial and gender inequality. It’s a fun major that leaves alum with lots to do in the future.
Thank you for an engaging interview, Prof. Long!