Awa Ambra Seck
Awa Ambra Seck is an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She graduated from Harvard in May 2023 with a Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government (Economics track). In 2024, and will start as an Assistant Professor in the Business, Government, and the International Economy unit at Harvard Business School.
Her research focuses on understanding the historical determinants of emigration from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe and its dynamics today. She is also passionate about understanding how cultural traits and economics intertwine, with a focus on the ethnic groups of sub-Saharan Africa.
Before joining Harvard, she completed a Master of Science in Economics and Social Sciences at Bocconi University. She received my bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Turin and Collegio Carlo Alberto.”
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Awa Ambra Seck is an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She graduated from Harvard in May 2023 with a Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government (Economics track). In 2024, and will start as an Assistant Professor in the Business, Government, and the International Economy unit at Harvard Business School.
Her research focuses on understanding the historical determinants of emigration from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe and its dynamics today. She is also passionate about understanding how cultural traits and economics intertwine, with a focus on the ethnic groups of sub-Saharan Africa.
Before joining Harvard, she completed a Master of Science in Economics and Social Sciences at Bocconi University. She received my bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Turin and Collegio Carlo Alberto.”
In their own words…
IEA – Can you tell us a little bit about your life story, what got you interested in economics, and how you decided to pursue an academic career?
Ambra – Since I was very little, I have been exposed to different economic backgrounds. Born to an Italian mother and a Senegalese father, who moved to Italy at a very young age, I grew up discovering the differences and similarities between these two countries and their cultures. This constant comparison between my two worlds fostered my desire to understand how culture and economic development intertwine. Furthermore, being a part of the migration experience, I was also curious to discover how the emigration process affects the different parties involved in it.
That said, at eighteen, the age at which you choose your major in Italy, I did not know that Economics could be used to study these issues and was more focused on Political Science. It was through the joint effort of my high-school professor, Anna Fronda, and a Statistics professor from Collegio Carlo Alberto di Torino, Igor Pruenster, that I realized Economics could be an interesting path. I am very grateful to both of them.
Similarly, I did not know I wanted to pursue an academic career at the beginning of my studies. However, when I realized how much I loved doing research and exploring questions I was passionate about for a living, I decided to apply for a PhD first and academic jobs later. Luckily, it worked out both times.
IEA – In your recent work you study how social organizations shape patterns of economic interaction and effect national policy using the distinction between age-based and kin-based groups in sub-Saharan Africa, can you briefly summarize your findings? What made you interested in this topic?
Ambra – In this paper, we focus our attention on the stark difference between age-based societies and kin-based societies. Age-based societies are organized around age-sets, groups of men that are initiated together and progress through different phases of life together, creating a strong bond that at times prevails over the relations with one’s family. Our main hypothesis was that the pre-colonial social structure of these ethnic groups persisted and gave rise to different financial networks today. Specifically, we expect age-set societies to redistribute resources horizontally, among coevals, and kin-based societies (organized around extended families) to redistribute resources vertically, i.e. across generations. The first step of our project has been to thoroughly read ethnographic and anthropological studies of all groups who lived in our region of interest, Kenya and Uganda, so to understand how they were organized and how to “translate” their traditions into variables that could be used for quantitative studies. We then used public data to show two sets of results. First, in age-set societies, poverty-reduction government cash transfers are redistributed within the recipients’ cohort, while in kin-based societies they are redistributed within clans. Second, vertical transmission of resources is stunted in age-set societies, with pension grants not affecting children’s outcomes, while they reduce children’s malnutrition in kin-based societies. This is an important result. For years it has been common understanding that old-age pensions were not only beneficial to the designated recipients, but also to their younger relatives, since grandparents contribute to the grandchildren’s upbringing. The same Uganda policy pension we evaluate was designed with this concept in mind, but it was not effective at bettering children’s outcomes in age-set societies. This paper shows clearly how culture matters for policy design and how important for our profession can insights from anthropology be.
I became interested in this topic during my first year of PhD. During Nathan Nunn’s Comparative Economic Development class, I learnt about age-sets societies. Coming from an ethnic group without age-sets, in which economic redistribution happened on a daily basis, I immediately wondered how the patterns of redistribution might have differed and found it profoundly interesting.
IEA – Another paper you are working on studies the impact of mass media on protests and you use historical data on protests in the US between 1954 and 1970. Can you briefly summarize your findings?
Ambra – In this paper I study whether television has influenced protests during the Civil Rights Movement and, if so, why.
In order to estimate the causal effect of television, I use two different estimation strategies. First, I exploit the exogeneity in television introduction caused by the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) “freeze” of broadcasting licenses between 1948 and 1952. Announced because of the need to solve interference problems and intended to last a few months, the freeze eventually ended four years later due to arising technical issues and disruptions in the political arena. Then, I use the Irregular Terrain Model of radio propagation to estimate the signal strength in each Standard Metropolitan Area. Conditional on geographic, demographic, and economic characteristics, the irregularity of the terrain between a receiving and a transmitter antenna generates plausibly exogenous variation. I then use the calculated signal to instrument television penetration and isolate its causal effect on protests.
Both estimation strategies relay a similar result: longer exposure to television results in higher incidents of protests initiated by Black people. In particular, having an operating television antenna before the FCC freeze is associated with an increase in the probability of a protest outbreak by 5.8 percentage points and an increase in the probability of having African American initiators by 6 percentage points. When I use the ITM model, I find that a 1 percent increase in television ownership increases the probability of protest outbreak by 1.1 percentage points. Again, I find that a one standard deviation increase in TV ownership increases the probability of having a Black-initiated conflict by 12 percentage points. Finally, I explore the mechanisms through which the TV can affect the incidence of protests. I find preliminary evidence that television might have influenced protests by facilitating coordination across actors, rather than through information provision.
IEA – Why is this research relevant today?
Ambra – Understanding how social structure affects resource redistribution is relevant today for several reasons. Our results suggest that culture significantly impacts the effectiveness of policy interventions, and age sets are just one possible example. I hope that this study will encourage more economists and policymakers to integrate insights from anthropology to better tailor poverty alleviation policies to the target population.
The second project I have described instead uses a historical example to provide insights into how media has affected political participation in the past, with a focus on the African-American population. As media keep playing a significant role in shaping public opinion and mobilizing social movements, understanding the impact of television on protests can be insightful. With the rise of social media and the continued influence of traditional media, insights from historical TV introductions can provide valuable perspectives on how media exposure may influence collective action today.
IEA – Why is it important for economic research to be racially diverse and inclusive?
Ambra – The field of Economics has historically struggled to achieve diversity and to build an inclusive environment for all. In 2021, women constituted only 32.8% of PhDs of newly awarded Ph.D. and 15.5% of full professors (CSWEP Report 2021). When we consider historically underrepresented minorities, they received 11.6% of Ph.D. and held 6.9% of full professor positions (CSMGEP Report 2021). Although in the past years, the situation has improved, especially for women, the picture of diversity in Economics remains grim.
In my opinion, if we believe that Economics is a tool to better understand the world we live in, then having people with different backgrounds, experiences, interests, and voices is paramount. I think that, until we do that, we will be limited to having a partial understanding of the economic forces that affect unrepresented communities in the field, and most of the world’s population.