Hello all, and welcome to my summer 2015 blog! I'm heading to Peru for 88 days to work at the
U.S. Embassy in Lima, as well as to spend some time traveling around a bit more of the country. For 10 weeks, I'll be an intern in the Economics Section of the Embassy, where I'll be working on issues including trade (especially the
Trans Pacific Partnership), environmental protections, and others as they arise. I'll also be helping with events, office management (what would an internship be without it?), and general embassy things. I'm really really really excited to start work, which is lucky because my first day is just around the corner!
 |
| My office for the next 10 weeks |
If you've spoken to me at all in the past academic year, you might be wondering why I'm spending my summer working on something that isn't econometric analysis of micro-level development projects. This is a fair question, considering the fact that I dedicated my soul to Microeconomics of Development (the most intense course I've ever taken) in my first semester of SAIS, and to my TA job for Applied Econometrics in my second semester. I've gushed about the
Freakonomics podcast (which I
highly recommend!) to pretty much everyone I know, made plans to pursue a PhD in economics sometime in the future, and sent out this tweet:
None of that has changed. However, while I've gotten very caught up in propensity scores and difference-in-difference analysis over the past year, I've
also gotten very caught up in Latin American politics and the impacts of globalization on our southern neighbors. After a spring internship at the
Inter-American Dialogue and a seminar course that brought experts on current issues in Latin America to a discussion with SAIS students, it's been impossible
not to understand the importance of the interactions that occur within the Western Hemisphere. And one of the many things that makes econometrics so amazing is that it can be applied to pretty much anything, and allows us to understand the impact that certain policy changes will have at any level of analysis (for a good example of this, see
Too Far to Export by Mauricio Mesquita Moreira, who is nothing if not an econometric genius). I'm also very excited to have the opportunity to live in the Andean region, practice my Spanish, and experience what it's like to represent the United States abroad.
Alright, enough about that for now, and onto more exciting news. I am flying Copa Airlines to Lima, and have a layover in Panama City overnight. It's only 11 hours, but that is plenty of time to explore a bit! I'll post updates soon. From there, it's a short flight to Lima, and then the adventure really begins!
