Scholars

Research Associate Sanjaya DeSilva is an associate professor of economics at Bard College, specializing in development economics and applied microeconomics. His current research interests include the political economy of education policy, and race and immigration in the housing market.

DeSilva is a former teaching fellow in the Department of Economics at Yale University (1996–2000). In 2000–01, he conducted postdoctoral research at Yale’s Economic Growth Center, authoring the discussion papers “Skills, Partnerships, and Tenancy in Sri Lankan Rice Farms” (2000), and “Supervision and Transaction Costs: Evidence from Rice Farms in Bicol, the Philippines” (with R. E. Evenson and A. Kimhi; 2000). Other publications include:

• “Labor Supervision and Institutional Conditions: Evidence from Bicol Rice Farms” (with R. E. Evenson an A. Kimhi), American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2006; and
• “Country Case Studies: Brazil” (with A. F. D. Avila, R. E. Evenson, and F. A. de Almeida), in Evenson and D. Gollin, eds., Crop Variety Improvement and Its Effect on Productivity: The Impact of International Agricultural Research, 2003.

Desilva is the recipient of a Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship, as well as doctoral research grants from the Ford Foundation and Yale University. He holds a BA from Macalester College, and MA, M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees from Yale.