Valentina Hartarska
A scientific paper that Auburn Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology Alumni Professor Valentina Hartarska co-authored has won the Association for Social Economics’ 2019 Warren Samuels Prize. The society presents the award annually to a high-quality scholarly article that is important to the field of social economics and has broad appeal across disciplines.
In the winning paper, titled “Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth: The Conflicting Impacts of Subsidies and Deposits on the Cost-Efficiency of Microfinance Institutions,” Hartarska and collaborators discuss their study to evaluate the costs and benefits of microfinance subsidization. Their findings suggest that unsubsidized, credit-plus-deposit microfinance institutions constitute the most cost-efficient group, and unsubsidized, credit-only institutions the least.
Hartarska shares the prize with co-investigators and –authors Anastasia Cozarenco, an economics professor at Montpellier Business School in France, and Ariane Szafarz, a Free University of Brussels finance professor.
Hartarska’s primary research interests are financial markets and institutions, agricultural finance, microfinance and economic development.
