IX Rodolfo Debenedetti Lecture – Hilary Hoynes

Hilary Hoynes, professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of California Berkeley, delivered the IX Ing. Rodolfo Debenedetti Lecture on social safety net and poverty.

The Great Recession led to historical losses in jobs and the subsequent recovery has been weak. In the context of the Great Recession, the speaker examined the impacts on the most vulnerable – those with low incomes. She investigated how poverty trended through the recession and explored the role of the social safety net in protecting outcomes. This analysis is important in light of the changing safety net in the U.S., in particular the decline of welfare and the rise in the Earned Income Tax Credit. Furthermore, with significant expansions in the social safety net in the Great Recession – extensions to Unemployment Insurance and the Food Stamp Program – the author investigated whether the safety net is doing more or less protection compared to earlier recessions.

Hilary Hoynes is a Professor of Public Policy and Economics and holds the Haas Distinguishes Chair in Economic Disparities. She is the co-editor of the leading journal in economics, American Economic Review. Hoynes received her undergraduate degree from Colby College and their PhD from Stanford University in 1992. In addition to her faculty appointment, Hoynes has research affiliations at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the UC Davis Center for Poverty Research and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. She sits on the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program and the Advisory Committee for the National Science Foundation, Directorate for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science.

Hilary Hoynes specializes in the study of poverty, inequality, ann the impacts of goverment tax and transfer programs on low income families. Current projects include evaluating the impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit on infant health, and estimating impacts of U.S. food and nutrition programs on labor supply, health and human capital accumulation.