University of California, Los Angeles last June (1995). His major fields
of study are comparative politics and international relations with
specializations in international political economy and methodology. He
conducted field work in Brazil on two separate occasions (May-October 1992
and May-July 1994). His dissertation is
entitled "Democracy, Human Capital, and Economic Growth." In it, he
explores the relationship between democracy and the accumulation of human
capital over a wide cross-section of countries between the years 1960 and
1985. In addition to the broad statistical analysis, a single case (Brazil
1964-1985) is examined in order to identify the causal links that connect
democratization to the accumulation of human capital: connections that
remain obscured in the aggregate analysis.
He worked on three separate projects. The first involves writing three papers that summarize the dissertation's main findings: 1) the first paper summarizes results derived from the developing world; 2) the second paper reports the findings generated in the Brazilian case study; 3) the third paper provides an in-depth look at democracy's impact on primary and secondary enrollment in Sub-Saharan Africa. The second project involves extending the Brazilian case study to additional countries that have experienced or continue to witness a very gradual process of democratization: Chile and Mexico. The third project represents a collaborative effort with Professor Wendy Hunter of Vanderbilt University. The project's goal is to evaluate the relative importance of international and domestic forces in explaining social policy in Latin America.
While at IBS, David worked on the Globalization and Democratization theme and presented a seminar on his work.