Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz is a Professor of Economics and Education Emeritus at Teachers College, and a Professor of International and Public Affairs at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia. He is the former Director of the Program in Economic Policy Management (SIPA, 1996-2002), Director of the Latino Studies Program (Columbia College, 1997-1999), and Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (Teachers College, 1991-1995). He also held a joint faculty appointment at Columbia’s Economics Department between 1996 and 2002. He is currently affiliated with the Program in Economic Policy Management (PEPM), the Executive MPA Program, the Picker Center for Executive Education, and the Institute of Latin American Studies. Before joining Columbia's faculty, Dr. Rivera-Batiz held teaching or research appointments at the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University in New Brunswick, the University of Puerto Rico, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He received his Bachelor's degree with Distinction in All Subjects from Cornell University in 1975 and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979.
Research Interests: international and development economics, education and its impact on labor markets, international migration, urban and regional economics, and Latino and Latin American studies.
Publications:
His publications in international and development economics include the book volume International Trade, Capital Flows and Economic Development (World Scientific Publishers, 2018, with Luis Rivera-Batiz), the textbook, International Finance and Open Economy Macroeconomics (Prentice Hall, with Luis A. Rivera-Batiz, 1994), the co-edited book The Political Economy of the East Asian Crisis (Edward Elgar Publishers, Cheltenham, U.K., 2001, with Arvid Lukauskas), research papers, such as “Trade, Poverty, Inequality and Gender,” published in the Handbook of Trade Policy for Development, edited by A. Lukauskas, R. Stern and G. Zanini (Oxford University Press, 2013), and several edited or co-edited special issues of academic journals, including Democracy, Participation and Economic Development published by the Review of Development Economics in June 2002, and European Regional Economic Integration published by Regional Science and Urban Economics in 1993.
In the area of education, his publications include the edited book volume Reinventing Urban Education (IUME Press, Teachers College, Columbia Univ., 1994), several policy monographs, such as Why Did PISA Test Scores Rise in Turkey? (with M. Durmaz) published by BETAM at Bahcesehir University (2013), Education as an Engine of Economic Development: Global Experiences and Prospects for El Salvador, was published by the Fundación Salvadoreña para el Desarrollo Económico y Social (FUSADES), San Salvador (2008), and his papers "Quantitative Literacy and the Likelihood of Employment Among Young Adults in the U.S.," Journal of Human Resources(1992), and "The Impact of School-to-Work Programs on Minority Youth Employment and Student Outcomes," (in W.J. Stull and N. Sanders, eds., What do we Know About School-to-Work: Research and Practice, Greenwood Press, 2003).
His research on immigration includes the book volume, International and Interregional Migration: Theory and Policy (World Scientific Publishers, 2018), the edited book volume U.S. Immigration Policy Reform in the 1980s: A Preliminary Assessment (Praeger, 1991, with Ira N. Gang and Selig Sechzer), the survey paper “The Globalization of International Labor Flows,” published in the Handbook of Trade Policy for Development edited by A. Lukauskas, R. Stern and G. Zanini (Oxford University Press, 2013), and a number of papers on immigration, such as “Economic Strain, Education and Attitudes towards Foreigners in the European Union," (with I. Gang and M.S. Yun), Review of International Economics (2013), and Undocumented Workers in the Labor Market: An Analysis of the Earnings of Legal and Illegal Mexican Immigrants in the U.S.," Journal of Population Economics (1999), and on immigration policy, including “A Kinder, Gentler Immigration Reform,” (co-authored with Jagdish N. Bhagwati) published in Foreign Affairs in 2013.
An expert on Latino populations in the United States, Dr. Rivera-Batiz has written on Dominican, Mexican, Puerto Rican and other Latino groups in New York City and in the U.S. His socioeconomic profiles of Dominican and Mexican New Yorkers have been widely disseminated in the press, including articles in the New York Times, Newsday, Daily News, and the Los Angeles Times. He has also carried out research on the economy and society of Puerto Rico, including the book Island Paradox: Puerto Rico in the 1990s (Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1996, with Carlos Santiago), as well as the article: "Education and Economic Development in Puerto Rico," in Barry Bosworth and Susan Collins, editors, The Puerto Rican Economy: Prospects for Growth, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 2005 (with Helen F. Ladd).