Dr. Christine Valente
Lecturer in Economics
Room 435
Tel +44 (0)114 22 23412
Fax +44 (0)114 222 3458
email : christine.valente@sheffield.ac.uk
Biography
Christine graduated from the University of Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne. She holds two master´s degrees (DEA from Paris 1 and DESS from the University of Paris 10), and a PhD from the University of Sheffield. She has worked as a research assistant at the University of Bristol (CMPO) and as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Nottingham before joining the Department in January 2010 as a lecturer in Economics. She is an external affiliate of the Health, Econometrics and Data Group (University of York) and a Member of the ESRC Peer Review College.
Christine has recently completed an ESRC-funded research project on abortion, neonatal health, and sex-selection in Nepal, as well as a study on the impact of the Nepalese civil conflict on education and marriage which was funded by the World Bank-Norway Trust Fund to inform the 2012 World Bank Development Report on Gender Equality and Development.
Teaching
"I currently teach applied microeconometrics at the postgraduate level, and I am the module leader for the optional undergraduate dissertation module. Both modules involve students undertaking guided, independent empirical research using econometric techniques in line with their level of study. The econometric methods I teach at postgraduate level are known as policy evaluation methods. This is a topic close to my heart, as most of the research questions I am interested in tend to lead me to use these techniques. They are a powerful tool to empirically test economic theories, and more generally to learn about genuine causal determinants of important phenomena such as unemployment, educational attainment, and health, to name but a few. I approach teaching as an opportunity to help students better understand the world they live in by giving them the tools they need to rigorously answer empirical questions about policy and other topics of interest. The aim is for students to not only learn up-to-date quantitative methods but also approach any information they are exposed to critically and logically, as a researcher would."
- ECN330 Undergraduate Dissertation
- ECN221: Economics of Social Issues
- ECN601 Applied Microeconometrics
Research Summary and PhD Student Supervision
Christine´s main research interests revolve around the formation of human capital (health and education) in developing countries, which she approaches from an applied, microeconometric point of view. Examples of her work include analyses of the determinants of child mortality in South Asia (e.g., focusing on inter-group differences in child mortality in India, or on access to birth control in the form of abortion in Nepal) and micro-econometric studies of the impact of violent civil conflict on pregnancy outcomes, child health, and education. Christine is interested in supervising doctoral research on determinants of education and health (including reproductive health) in developing countries.