Maria Polyakova: Economics Provides a Lens Through Which She Can Better Understand Structural Issues in Society
Maria Polyakova: Economics Provides a Lens Through Which She Can Better Understand Structural Issues in Society
Maria Polyakova is fascinated by how people think about social issues and how different social contracts are formed.
As a Yale undergrad in the mid-2000s — who was then considering a career in cognitive science — Polyakova realized that economics provides a lens through which she could better understand structural issues in society. In an economic history course on the British Industrial Revolution, she was struck by how little is known about why some societies work well and others less so. Economic modeling, she discovered, offers a way to better understand these and other complex issues.
“Economics helps you think about societal problems in ways that you wouldn’t otherwise,” says Polyakova, who majored in economics and mathematics and whose senior thesis analyzed the opposing approaches the U.S. and the Soviet Union took to rebuilding Germany after World War II. “Economics can seem technical, but it actually lets you tell a story.”
Polyakova, PhD, is an associate professor of health policy and Tad and Dianne Taube Healthcare Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR).
