Michael Kevane, associate professor of economics at Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business, recently was awarded a U.S. Fulbright Scholar award from the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, to study the development impact of literacy gains in Burkina Faso.
Kevane will spend about six months in Burkina Faso in West Africa later this year, measuring how increased reading of fiction by young people affects certain character traits which are considered vital to spurring economic development.
The Fulbright combines Kevane's two biggest scholastic passions: economics and literacy/reading in Africa. He is director and founder of Friends of African Village Libraries, a nonprofit that helps build and maintain libraries in African villages.
Kevane's research will focus on six outcomes: attitudes of tolerance towards cultural difference, inclinations to be cooperative and trusting, patience, risk preferences, and attitudes towards innovation and change. Increasingly, these mental predispositions are seen as important in the process of economic development. The research will be conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Institut National des Sciences des Sociétés of Burkina Faso.
Kevane received his Ph.D. in development economics from the University of California- Berkeley and his B.S. in foreign service from Georgetown University. He has consulted for the World Bank, Freedom from Hunger, and the private sector. The author of two books and numerous articles in academic journals, Kevane also lectures and writes frequently on African economic development and socio-economic issues.
The Fulbright Program is sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State. The primary source of funding for Fulbright is an annual appropriation from the United States Congress.
About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California's Silicon Valley, offers its more than 8,800 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, theology, and engineering, plus master's and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master's universities, California's oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.
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SCU Media Relations
Deborah Lohse, 408-554-5121
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