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University of Washington

C. Leigh Anderson

C. Leigh Anderson

Professor of Public Affairs
Ph.D., University of Washington, 1989

application/pdf iconCurriculum Vitae (158.03 KB)

Parrington 224
cla@uw.edu
(206) 543-0365

C. Leigh Anderson joined the Evans School faculty in 1997. Her primary research interest is in how individuals living in poverty make financial, environmental, health, and other livelihood decisions, especially when outcomes are highly risky or spread over time. Her current research focuses on rural poverty and agriculture, and market and policy institutions.

Anderson also serves as the director of the Marc Lindenberg Center for Humanitarian Action, International Development, and Global Citizenship and co-Director of the Evans School Policy Analysis and Research Group (EPAR) that provides ongoing research support to Agricultural Development at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She teaches courses in economics, statistics, and international development.

Anderson previously taught for eight years at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She has also taught or been a visiting researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan, Renmin University of China in Beijing, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.

Anderson is a recipient of the University of Washington’s Excellence in Teaching Award and the UW’s Department of Economics Henry T. Buechel Award for outstanding undergraduate teaching.

Areas of specialization

International Development
Markets and Individual Decision Making 

Recent publications

  • Savings and Personal Discount Rates in a Matched Savings Program for Low Income Families (with Marieka Klawitter and Mary Kay Gugerty). Contemporary Economic Policy, May 2012
  •  The Meaning of Native American Land Ownership: A Study in Psychological Entitlement, Reference Levels and Valuation Disparities, (with Richard O. Zerbe) in The Evolution of Property Rights Related to Land and Natural Resources, Daniel H Cole and Elinor Ostrom, eds. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2012.
  • Are Women as Likely to Take Risks and Compete? (with Diana Fletschner and Alison Cullen)  Journal of Development Studies, 2010 Vol. 46, Issue 8, 1459-1479.
  • Seed Trade in Rural Markets: Implications for Crop Diversity and Agricultural Development (editor with Leslie Lipper and Timothy J. Dalton) provides case studies from Bolivia, India, Kenya, Mali, and Mexico on agricultural seed and product markets that describe important market characteristics expected to affect farmers’ access to seeds and varieties, 2010, London: FAO and Earthscan.
  • Intertemporal Choice and Development Policy:  New Evidence on Time-Varying Discount Rates from Vietnam and Russia (with Mary Kay Gugerty) The Developing Economies 47, no. 2. June 2009: 123-46.
  • Preference Variability Along the Policy Chain in Vietnam (with Alison Cullen and Kostas Stamoulis) Journal of Socio-economics, 37, 2008: 1729-1745.
  • The Implications of Behavioral Economics for International Development Policy, (with Kostas Stamoulis) in Advancing Development: Core Themes in Global Economics, George Mavrotas and Tony Shorrocks eds., Palgrave-MacMillan, 2007.
  • Teach Your Children Well: Values of Thrift and Saving (with Neil Nevitte)  Journal of Economic Psychology, Volume 27, Issue 2, April 2006, 247-261.
  • Discount Rates in Vietnam, (with Maya Dietz, Andrew Gordon and Marieka Klawitter). Economic Development and Cultural Change, July 2004 (52:4).
    Making Progress: Essays in Progress and Public Policy (editor with Janet Looney) draws on writers from many disciplines to provoke a broad-based discussion on the meaning of, measurement of, and necessary conditions for progress.

Current and past projects

  • Evans School Policy Analysis and Research group (EPAR) provides on-going research support to the Policy and Statistics group and others within the Agricultural Development team of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
  • Global Women’s Philanthropy is a research project led by the Washington Women’s Foundation's founder, Colleen Willoughby, and supported by the Marc Lindenberg Center to promote women as philanthropists.
  • Improving Market Participation for the Poor (IMPP) is a collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to conduct research on the effectiveness of programs designed to increase market opportunities and connections for the rural poor in central Vietnam.
  • Curriculum, Research, and Outreach in Microfinance: A joint microfinance project sponsored by the US State Department. Participants: Baikal Institute of Business and International Management (BIBIM ISU), Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washington, Siberian Academy of Public Administration (SAPA).

Courses taught

  • PBAF 516: Economics for Policy Analysis and Management I
  • PBAF 532: Managing Policy in a Global Context
  • PBAF 533: Economics of International Development
    PBAF 506: Advanced Microeconomics for Policy Analysis
    PBAF 530: Topics in International Affairs
    PBAF 599: Topics in Microfinance
    PBAF 528: Quantitative Analysis II
    PBAF 537: International Trade and Environmental Policy