To Members of the UCSD Economics Community

Our department was founded in 1964. We have grown a lot since then, now hosting a vibrant, cosmopolitan community of students, faculty and visiting scholars. Our students and faculty represent diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, religions, and identities, including many with a history of unequal treatment and disadvantage. We strive to provide a tolerant, inclusive, and welcoming atmosphere. Our faculty examine everything from microeconomic and econometric theory (our two traditional fields of strength) to macroeconomics, development economics, environmental economics, international economics, labor economics, and public economics. We provide a diverse and complete training for our students.

The Economics Department stands along with the rest of the UCSD Community in condemning both racism and the effects of racism that we have been seeing around the US. It is not just recent events, but a much longer term pattern of problems in our society. These problems require action at local, state, and national level. And we understand that the injustices are impacting both our students and other members of our community at very different levels. Many of us may not understand fully the depth of anxiety and pain that racist actions are causing, but we stand with those that are most impacted.

The Department maintains and supports the UCSD Principles of Community, and now is a great time for us to remind ourselves of this. We agree with the message of the university outlined by the Chancellor in his message to our community. We agree with UC President Napolitano and Regents Chair Perez in their joint statement about our role as a leading public university in addressing institutional racism. Racism should have no place on campus just as it should have no place in the wider community.

The Economics Department stands behind not just the UCSD principles but those of the American Economic Association as well. We can take some comfort in that as scholars, educators, and students in a field that actively engages these issues, we can be part of the real solutions. Economics as a field has developed many tools that can address the root causes of the problems we are seeing expressed, and many economists work in this space. And economists both here at UCSD and in the rest of the profession work on issues that directly affect those left out of the power structure of our current political systems. Economists will be part of the longer run solution to these problems. There is hope in this, even if there are no quick fixes.