“ Economics has allowed me to study every social issue I’ve been interested in so far. "
Noriko Amano-Patiño is a lecturer at the University of Cambridge. Her research primarily focuses on understanding the sources and implications of different dimensions of inequality across genders and racial groups. Prior to joining the faculty of Economics at Cambridge, she obtained her Ph.D. at Yale University in 2018. She joined the Ph.D. program having received a bachelor’s degree in Math and a masters’ in Economic Theory in Mexico.
Why economics?
Noriko, originally from Mexico, majored in math as an undergrad. Although she enjoyed it, perhaps since the financial crisis hit while she was in college, she became interested in studying something that had a closer connection to the “real world.” Almost by chance, she enrolled in a master’s program in Economic Theory. Once she realized that almost any social problem – ranging from eating patterns of the income poor to the racial disparities of Covid19 deaths, – can be framed and studied through the lens of economics, she further applied to a Ph.D. program. She currently studies different dimensions of inequality – an umbrella of topics she has always been passionate about.
“Almost every social issue can be framed as an issue of scarcity, an issue of how people use resources and respond to incentives, or an issue of individuals’ decision-making: that’s economics.”