Susan W Parker

Susan W. Parker is a Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park, and serves as Associate Director of the Maryland Population Research Center (MPRC). She previously held a professorship in Economics at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City. Her research focuses on education and health policies in developing countries, particularly evaluating conditional cash transfer programs, public health insurance, and obesity trends in Mexico.

• Education: Ph.D. in Economics (Yale University, 1993), M.A./M.Phil. in Economics (Yale, 1990), B.A. in Economics and Mathematics (Franklin and Marshall College, 1987).
• Key Research Areas:
  • Program evaluation of social policies in Latin America
  • Conditional cash transfers (e.g., Mexico's Progresa/Oportunidades/Prospera)
  • Health insurance impacts on aging populations
  • Obesity and public health in developing economies
• Publications: Over 30 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as the American Economic Journal, Demography, and the Journal of Economic Literature. Recent work examines long-term effects of anti-poverty programs and pandemic impacts on education and labor markets.

Her current projects include studying obesity trends in Mexico, the health impacts of Seguro Popular, and mobile banking among low-income populations. No scientific awards are explicitly mentioned, but her extensive policy evaluations highlight significant contributions to development economics.