Professor Gary Dymski

Profile

I joined the faculty of Leeds University Business School in April 2012 as Professor of Applied Economics.

I lived until 2012 in the United States: I grew up in or near Buffalo, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and attended both high school and university in that city. I graduate Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975 (urban studies major, anthropology minor). The next step was Syracuse, New York: I worked full-time as senior research analyst in the Syracuse University Office of Institutional Research and received my Masters of Public Administration from SU's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in 1977. I held two full-time positions thereafter in Indianapolis, Indiana: I was economic analyst for the Legal Services Organization of Indiana (a program providing legal, legislative, and policy support for low-income people in the state) between 1977 and 1979; and from 1979-81 I served as staff director and fiscal analyst for the Democratic caucus in the Indiana State Senate. I served under Senator Frank O'Bannon, who went on to be a two-term Lt. Governor and then Governor of that state.

In 1981 I moved to Massachusetts to begin doctoral studies in economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. During that period of study, I was selected as the Leo Model Research Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, spending 1985-86 in Washington at Brookings. I took up a position as visiting assistant professor at the University of Southern California in 1986 before receiving my doctoral degree in 1987.

Between 1987 and 1991 I was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Southern California. In 1991 I was hired at the University of California, Riverside, also as assistant professor of economics. I was promoted to associate professor (that is, tenured) at UCR in 1995, and then promoted to professor of economics in 2000. I officially resigned from UCR in 2014.

While a member of the University of California, Riverside faculty, I served as associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (2001-2002). I resigned that position so as to play the role of founding director of UCR's Center for Sustainable Suburban Development in the 2002-03 academic year. I moved from UCR to Sacramento in July 2003 so as to become the founding executive director of the University of California Center, Sacramento (UCCS). UCCS, run out of the UC Office of the President, served all 11 University of California campuses as a public policy center in California's state capitol. UCCS trained over 600 scholar-interns from across the UC system during my years there (2003-2009), and held more than 300 seminars, conferences, and workshops on policy challenges facing California and its government.

I've been a visiting scholar in universities and research centers in Australia, Brazil, Bangladesh, Colombia, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, and Mexico. I've had the opportunity to engage in policy-related work since becoming an academic with organizations and projects in the United States (California, Washington, DC, New York, Ohio, among others), Brazil, Canada, the European Union, France, Greece, and South Africa. In Brazil, I organized academic/NGO/resident workshops on research about favelas in Rio de Janeiro in 2010 and 2011, and have served as advisor to the Minas Gerais (state) Development Bank. I am currently an advisor to the Debt and Development division of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), located in Geneva.

Closer to home in Yorkshire, I am among the founders of Leeds ACTS, an academic collaboration between third-sector organizations and universities in Leeds; and I have been the University of Leeds' representative on the Leeds City Council's Third Sector Assembly since its founding in 2015.

I've also served on the editorial boards of several academic journals and on the governing committees of a number of academic associations. Currently I am a member of the council of the Post Keynesian Economic Society (UK).

Research interests

I have published numerous books, articles, chapters, and studies on banking, financial fragility, urban development, credit-market discrimination, gender and racial inequality, the Latin American and Asian financial crises, exploitation, housing finance, the subprime lending crisis, financial regulation, the Eurozone crisis, and economic policy. Some of this research has appeared in economics or political economy journals (and books), and some in geography journals (and books). Current research projects include the UK productivity paradox; the impact and governance of financial power in the global economy; the spatial aspects of financial instability; the post-crisis challenges of economic development in lower-income areas affected by subprime lending, discrimination, and redlining; the liquidity preference/investment crisis in South Africa; the integration of macroeconomic and financial logic into economic geography; and the challenge of creating more circular, equitable, and sustainable urban and national economies.

While my interests have always encompassed cross-disciplinary topics, coming to the University of Leeds has provided an opportunity to undertake exciting and impactful interdisciplinary projects in partnership with colleagues at Leeds and across the country (and world). Much of this exploration of interdisciplinary research possibilities occurred during the three years in which Prof. Phil Purnell (Civil Engineering) and I co-led the University's Cities research theme (2016-19) (https://www.leeds.ac.uk/info/130566/cities/603/cities_team). In that role I was also able to encourage the development of new cross-campus initiatives. I'm a member of the advisory board of VIrtuocity (https://uolds.leeds.ac.uk/facility/virtuocity/) and have participated in various networks and initiatives on campus.

I'm currently playing roles in several exciting UK-wide research projects. I'm a co-investigator in the 'Self-Repairing Cities' project (EPSRC Grand Challenge) - http://selfrepairingcities.com/, and also am one of the co-investigators for the Productivity Insights Network (ESRC Network-Plus) - https://productivityinsightsnetwork.co.uk/. I also serving as a research hub co-leader for the Rebuilding Macroeconomics project (ESRC Network-Plus) - https://www.rebuildingmacroeconomics.ac.uk/. I was also co-investigator on the recently concluded ESRC-funded Socially Inclusive Cities project (2017-2019) led by Dr. Ghazala Mir of Leeds' faculty of medicine and health - https://medicinehealth.leeds.ac.uk/dir-record/research-projects/979/socially-inclusive-cities

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Economics, 1987
• M.P.A., Maxwell School, Syracuse University, Public Budgeting, 1977
• B.A., University of Pennsylvania, Urban Studies, 1975

Professional memberships

• Post Keynesian Economic Society
• American Economic Association
• Association for Evolutionary Economics
• American Association of Geographers
• Regional Studies Association
• Union for Radical Political Economics
• International Association for Feminist Economics
• National Economic Association

Student education

I have taught many different subjects over the years at the undergraduate, post-graduate, and doctoral levels. At UCR, my courses included macroeconomics, game theory, urban economics, history of economic thought, comparative economic systems, monetary economics, and development. At UCCS, I created the "Sacramento Seminar," a seminar that both taught the basics of California government and the principles of policy analysis and that had students research, write, and publicly present their own policy analyses about California's public-policy challenges; I also taught a course called "The Political Economy of California: Globalization and the Economic Future."

Since arriving at Leeds, I have led or participated in modules focusing on applied econometrics, gobal political economy, international political economy, and urban development.

The doctoral students I've supervised or co-supervised have focused on a range of issues, including financial in/exclusion, macroeconomic theory and policy, financial instability and crises, the European economy, international economics, inequality and stratification, and economic development.

Research groups and institutes

• Applied Institute for Research in Economics

Current postgraduate researchers

• Thereza Balliester Reis
• Daniel Perez Ruiz
• Lesslie Valencia
• Jimena Castillo Aguerre
• Andreas Maschke
• Alexandra
• Veronica Gonzalez-Navarro
• Nabeel Sharif