Statement of Purpose

Challenges have been my companion since childhood. My divorced mother supported a family of seven: my
paralyzed grandmother, two uncles—one sick with thalesimia and the other a drug addict—two college-going
aunts and myself. Mother used to put in backbreaking hours to provide for everyone's care, medical expenses,
tuition and food—not to mention drug money for my addicted uncle. Mother had high hopes for me and
enrolled me in an expensive English medium school. Ever since, I have felt an incessant urge to make her
struggle worthwhile. This feeling urges me to challenge myself and excel. Thus, my childhood has shaped me
and helped me to set my career goals.

I am especially interested in conducting research on the well-being of women in developing countries. For my
economics senior project at Bard College I completed a research paper titled, “The Impact of Trade in the
Garment Sector on the Well-being and the Intra-household Bargaining Power of Bangladeshi Women.” Standard
analysis suggests that women with more bargaining power may gain more leisure time, as their economic
opportunities expand with trade. However, if bargaining power depends on a woman’s labor supply choice, we
could observe that women would reduce their leisure time to gain more bargaining power. The aim of my
project was to analyze this trade-off and the situation of Bangladeshi women when the garment sector trade
boomed. I analyzed the impact of the Multi-Fiber Agreement on the development of the garment sector trade in
Bangladesh and also the impact of garment sector trade on women’s wages. I constructed two mathematical
models to analyze the impact of change in women's wages on their bargaining power, private consumption of
goods and leisure time, consumption of household level public goods like children and their allocation of time
to childrearing.

After graduation from Bard I was selected to join The Levy Economics Institute as a research assistant for the
Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW) within the distribution of income and wealth
program. The LIMEW is constructed as the sum of the following components: base money income (gross
money income less government cash transfers and property income), the value of certain employer-provided in-
kind benefits, income from wealth, net government expenditures (transfers and public consumption net of taxes)
and the value of household production. I am researching different components of the LIMEW and developing
and updating the measure for additional years. At the Levy Institute, I am honing my research skills and have
become interested in the impact of the absence of a social safety net in developing countries on women's well-
being. A special interest that I have developed is the role of Islamic laws of inheritance on fertility rates, intra-
household bargaining power, allocation of resources, and time devoted to housework. According to Islamic
Sharia (rule), a son inherits twice as much as a daughter from his father’s or grandfather’s property. Therefore,
in Bangladeshi families, where a man may have more than one wife, a woman (married to a man with multiple
wives) would want to have more sons in order to secure a larger share of her in-laws’ property. Since every wife
would want more sons, these women have more children, which shrinks each individual’s property share. I
propose to model and quantify the impact of this Islamic Sharia (law) on fertility rates by enrolling in a rigorous
doctoral program following my year of studying with the Levy research.

At Bard I found the course Economics of Developing Countries the most fascinating since it facilitated an
analysis of various development policies as well as social norms and culture from an economic perspective. I
realized that my mother, although self-reliant, tolerated my uncle’s unruly behavior because she regarded him as
“protector of the family.” In Bangladesh the government does not protect individual property rights adequately,
therefore, my uncle’s presence was essential to signal that our property rights couldn’t be violated easily.
Moreover in Bangladeshi society, a high social premium is placed on a woman’s virtue and my uncle’s presence

1
signaled integrity of the female members. I recognized that to my mother the benefit outweighed the cost of
providing for uncle’s care. This realization made me ask the question “Can I find an economic interpretation to
any individual behavior?” The pursuit of an answer to this question really excited me about the study of
economics.

In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, the seminal treatise on ethics and human nature published in 1759, Adam
Smith wrote: How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which
interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing
from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. Profound, yet simple, this quote epitomizes my motivation for
organizing a trip last winter, along with a few Bard students, to Bangladesh to set up a mentoring program for
children of Bangladeshi sex workers. In collaboration with The Programme for the Introduction and Adaptation
of Contraceptive Technology (PIACT) I worked with children of sex workers in a rehabilitation center near one
of the biggest brothels of Bangladesh situated in Aricha, the outskirts of the capital city, Dhaka. At this brothel, I
witnessed discrimination and extreme poverty, resulting in poor and unhygienic living conditions, low self-
esteem and poor health of the brothel employees and their children. I interviewed approximately thirty sex
workers regarding their entry into sex trade. Some of these women attributed extreme poverty in their family,
arising from the 1988 flood, as the reason for their entry into this profession. Hearing their histories inspired my
interest in the impact of environmental disasters on health and demographic decision-making in rural
households, with a focus on high prevalence of HIV/AIDS.

My higher-level mathematics preparation while in Bangladesh allowed me to focus on proof-based courses such
as Real Analysis, Advanced Linear Algebra, and Advanced Topics in Algebra and Combinatorics. At Bard I also
completed an individual senior research project in mathematics called “Application of Groebner Basis to the M-
color Problem for Graphs.” The research resulted in the development and proof of two new theorems in the
application of Algebra to Graph Theory. I presented part of the results of this project at the Hudson River
Undergraduate Mathematics Conference at Union College in April 2003.

In addition, I have gained experience in tutoring in the area of economics and mathematics. Being a peer tutor at
Bard Academic Services for mathematics and economics allowed me to discuss economic issues and to teach
mathematics and economic theories, furthering my understanding of mathematical and economic theories.
Moreover, it provoked in me an interest in teaching.

At every step of my academic and professional careers thus far, I have sought an ever more precise
understanding of how people in developing countries respond to their surrounding environment and how their
responses affect their welfare. As a graduate student at University of Pennsylvania, I would want to pursue my
interest in development economics. From my conversations with Professor Jere R. Behrman and a graduate
student, Shalini Roy, I am convinced that University of Pennsylvania’s strength in population, growth and
demography studies places the program in a unique position to nurture my research. In particular, I am
interested in the work of Professors Jere R. Behrman, Petra Elisabeth Todd, John Knowles, and Jose-Victor
Rios-Rull, especially in their research in the areas of AIDS/HIV prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa, contribution
of legislation, social activism, markets and choice to the economic progress of African Americans in the
twentieth century, fertility, demographics and decision-making regarding consumption of private and household
level public goods. I hope to enrich my knowledge of economics by working with them and share my first hand
experience of living in a developing country. In the future, I would like to become a professor and a researcher
at a University. As a teacher, I would like to encourage innovation and help cultivate a new generation of
independent and creative thinkers and use my skills to shed new light on unresolved issues and add a unique

2
perspective to a vital academic and practical discourse. Therefore, I would hope to be given the chance to
accomplish my goals.