Susan M. Collins (economist)

Susan Collins
Collins speaks at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy in 2012
Born	Jamaica
Spouse(s)	Donald Vereen
Academic background
Education	Harvard University (BA) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MA, PhD)
Thesis	Devaluations, Fixed Exchange Rates and Credibility Crises (1984)
Academic work
Discipline	Economics
Sub-discipline	Macroeconomics
Institutions	Harvard University, Georgetown University, University of Michigan
Main interests	Determinants of economic growth; Exchange rate regimes in developed and developing economies; Cross-national economic integration

Susan M. Collins is an American scholar in the fields of economics and public policy. As of July 16, 2020, she is the provost of the University of Michigan.^[1]

She received her B.A. in economics from Harvard University in 1980, and her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984. She has held various teaching positions at Harvard, Georgetown University and the University of Michigan, and also served on the President's Council of Economic Advisers from 1989 to 1990 and was a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund in 2001.^[2]

Collins is the Edward M. Gramlich Professor of Public Policy and a professor of economics at the University of Michigan, where she also served as dean of the Ford School from 2007 to 2017.^[3] She is a nonresident senior fellow in the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution^[4] and is a member on the board of directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.^[5]

Collins was involved in the controversy surrounding the University of Michigan's reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic. On September 8, 2020, the university's graduate student employees went on strike because of concerns related to the university's pandemic response.^[6] As the university's chief academic officer, Collins was involved in negotiations with the graduate students while also urging students not to disrupt campus operations and claiming that the strike was illegal because it was not directly related to "wages, hours, or working conditions." The students disagreed, claiming that the strike directly related to the university's failure to provide a safe working environment which was required by the contract it agreed to only months prior.^[7] In a publicly broadcast question and answer session on September 15, 2020, Collins said of the administration's pandemic response: “We have not done nearly as well as we needed to.”^[8]

Selected publications[]

• Bosworth, Barry, and Susan M. Collins. "Accounting for growth: comparing China and India." Journal of Economic Perspectives 22, no. 1 (2008): 45–66.
• Collins, Susan M., Barry P. Bosworth, and Dani Rodrik. "Economic growth in East Asia: accumulation versus assimilation." Brookings papers on economic activity 1996, no. 2 (1996): 135–203.
• Bosworth, Barry P., Susan M. Collins, and Carmen M. Reinhart. "Capital flows to developing economies: implications for saving and investment." Brookings papers on economic activity 1999, no. 1 (1999): 143–180.
• Razin, Ofair, and Susan M. Collins. Real exchange rate misalignments and growth. No. w6174. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1997.
• Collins, Susan M. "On becoming more flexible: Exchange rate regimes in Latin America and the Caribbean." Journal of Development Economics 51, no. 1 (1996): 117–138.

References[]