معرفی
Olga Shurchkov is Professor of Economics at Wellesley College, Research Fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), and Paula Phillips Bernstein ‘58 Faculty Director of the Madeleine K. Albright Institute for Global Affairs. She serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization and holds leadership roles in the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP), including Associate Chair and Director of Mentoring.
Education:
- B.A. in Economics and Art History, Wellesley College
- Ph.D. in Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2008)
Her research centers on behavioral and experimental economics, specifically investigating how gender, appearance, and race influence labor market outcomes through stereotypes and biased beliefs. Using controlled experiments and observational data, she examines competitiveness under time pressure, leadership productivity, feedback reactions, and pandemic impacts on academic parents. Her work consistently identifies institutional barriers to equality and proposes policy interventions targeting belief systems rather than individual preferences.
Recent publications (2020-2025) reveal three dominant trends: 1) Gender disparities in academic publishing and pandemic productivity, 2) Beauty economics and appearance-based discrimination, and 3) Stereotype-driven decision-making in teams and information spread. These studies frequently employ field experiments and have been featured in major outlets including The Washington Post, The Economist, and The Daily Show.
As CSWEP Director of Mentoring, she organizes workshops for women and non-binary PhD students at conferences like the Southern Economic Association, chairs CSWEP events at the Eastern Economic Association, and advocates for structural changes in economics through editorial roles at Feminist Economics. Her grant-related activities focus on analyzing gender gaps in research productivity to inform funding policies.
She directs the Madeleine K. Albright Institute for Global Affairs and previously led Wellesley's Knapp Social Science Center. Her research collaborations extend to Harvard Kennedy School’s Women and Public Policy Program, with current projects emphasizing institutional design to mitigate bias in economic decision-making.
