Sarah Babb

The recurring theme in my work is the origin and political impact of economic ideas. My 1996 article in the American Sociological Review, entitled "A True American System of Finance: Frame Resonance in the U.S. Labor Movement, 1866-1896," analyzed 19th century labor movement rhetoric concerning the problems of the American working class, focusing on conflict between "greenbacker" ideology and experienced reality. Social movement ideologies, I concluded, are analogous to Kuhnian paradigms in being both resistant to disconfirmation and disconfirmable in the long run. My book, Managing Mexico (based on my doctoral dissertation), examines historical, institutional, and ideological shifts in the training of economists in Mexico. Whereas economics in Mexico began in the 1920s as a leftist, interventionist, and statist profession, today it is dominated by academics and government officials trained in the United States. These individuals played a central role in bringing about Mexico's transition to free-market or neoliberal economic policies in the 1980s and 90s, and continue to be a powerful force in the Mexican government today. I am co-author, with Bruce Carruthers, of a textbook on economic sociology entitled Economy/Society: Markets, Meanings, and Social Structure. Economy/Society: Markets, Meanings, and Social Structure. My current interests include the International Monetary Fund and historical changes, fads, and fashions in economic policy reforms prescribed for developing countries.

 

Education

B.A. (1988) University of Michigan; M.A. (1993) Northwestern University; Ph.D. (1998) Northwestern University

 

Subjects

Development

 

Experience

• Associate Professor, Boston College, 2004-present
• Assistant Professor, Boston College, 2003-04
• Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1998-2003

Expertise

Economic sociology; historical sociology; Mexico; development policy history