Maria Pia Paganelli Receives Second Fulbright

Trinity University is excited to announce that economics professor Maria Pia Paganelli, Ph.D., has been granted her second Fulbright Scholarship. Paganelli will spend the Fall 2024 semester in Chile, the same location as her first Fulbright. There, she will investigate whether Adam Smith’s ideas on free banking have taken hold in Chile following the introduction of free banking laws in the country. 

Adam Smith is considered the father of economics, 也是国际亚当·斯密协会的主席, 帕加内利是世界上研究史密斯的主要专家之一. 2023 marked Smith’s 300th birthday, and to celebrate and discuss his legacy, Paganelli was invited to present at 19 universities and academic organizations and speak at six conferences across the world, some virtually but the majority in person. She spent her entire summer, spring break, Thanksgiving break, and part of winter break lecturing, and her travels took her to Japan, Chile, Scotland, Italy, China, Brazil, Colombia, and Canada, as well as the U.S. states of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Virginia. 

了解更多关于她过去和即将到来的国际经历, we asked Paganelli a few questions about her research and how it relates to her role as a Trinity professor. 

Tell us a bit more about Adam Smith and the topics you addressed in your lectures about his philosophies. 

As far as his economic ideas are concerned, 史密斯以描述市场互动的普遍积极效应而闻名. Still, his analysis is quite nuanced. 

In my opinion, Smith cautions that we should condemn state interventions in the economy that are driven by special interest groups, which successfully capture state power to benefit themselves at the expense of the majority of the population. On the other hand, 我们应该支持有利于全体人民的干预措施, as opposed to only a small part of it. 

在你去过的许多地方，你最喜欢的经历是什么?

My favorite event was actually not a lecture but a workshop I organized at the end of May in Santiago, Chile, 在一些来自欧洲和南北美洲的同事的帮助下. 我们召集了12位有前途的后期博士.D. 来自拉丁美洲的学生和早期的职业学者参加了关于史密斯的研讨会. The goal was to help them prepare to present their work (in English) at international conferences and to help them make their work publishable. 

我相信这对他们来说是一次宝贵的经历. For some of them, it was the first opportunity to present their work in English and to receive detailed comments from a group of renowned senior scholars. 在北美和欧洲以外，有很多人才对史密斯感兴趣. However, the resources to support excellence in teaching and research outside North America and Europe are not as abundant. Supporting early career scholars to break out of some external limitations and giving them the opportunities and tools to excel, I’d like to believe, was a good birthday present for Adam Smith. 

你觉得你的教学工作与你目前的研究或教学工作是否一致?

In my experience, 给不同的听众讲课训练一个人在课堂上成为一个更好的老师. One needs to be able to address different skills, different backgrounds, and different levels of attention. 我们的教室是世界多样性的一个缩影.

Maria Pia Paganelli, Ph.D. (right), was invited to lecture by the Italian Parliament’s House of Representatives in their library in Rome, Italy, 这是她为庆祝亚当·斯密诞辰300周年而出访的一部分.

请告诉我们你的第一个富布赖特项目是做什么的, 以及你的第二个人是如何与它联系或扩展的. 

My first Fulbright was to study the transition from free banking to central banking in Chile and see if the thoughts of Adam Smith had any influence on that debate. 今天，我们的钱来自一家中央银行——美国联邦储备银行.S.’s case. 世界上大多数国家都有一个发行本国货币的中央银行. 但在20世纪之前，私人银行会在许多国家发行货币. 这种有多家发行银行的体系被称为自由银行. Adam Smith supported free banking, a system to which he attributed, in part, 他那个时代苏格兰的经济增长和金融稳定.

After its independence from Spain, 智利发展了一个相对运转良好的自由银行体系, but it eventually adopted a central bank. My original hypothesis was that Smith’s analysis would be used as a defense of free banking during the debate about the transition to a central bank. 在我第一次参加富布赖特项目期间所做的工作证明我错了. But what I learned at that time is that the free banking laws in Chile had a striking resemblance to the characteristics of free banking that Smith described as successful for Scotland.  所谓智利自由银行法的起草人是一位法国经济学教授, invited by the Chilean government. 我的第一个富布赖特项目在我的论文中达到了顶峰 《智利自由银行的史密斯式解读 History of Political Economy (2023) 55 (4): 755–772.

My hypothesis now is that the resemblance of the Chilean free banking laws with the free banking system that Smith describes is not a coincidence. Thus, my second Fulbright will investigate if Smith’s ideas on free banking took hold in Chile with the introduction of free banking laws.   

获得两个而不是一个富布赖特奖对你来说意味着什么?

获得富布赖特奖是一种难以置信的荣誉，也是一种责任. 富布赖特学者被认为是文化大使，代表着美国.S. and their home institutions in the host country. It is humbling to be picked to represent the culture of excellence that Trinity University fosters and creates. 

你的富布赖特工作如何与你目前的教学工作相结合?

我在智利的工作一部分是做研究，一部分是教书. 

My research on the possible influence of Smith on free banking in Chile will strengthen both my knowledge of Smith and my knowledge of money and banking. I will be able to transmit that knowledge to my students in my “Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations” class, in my “Development of Economic Thought” class, 甚至在我的“宏观经济学原理”课上. 

I also welcome the opportunity to teach a class on Adam Smith in Chile because I think teaching students who are different from my usual ones makes me a better teacher. The more diverse the students are, 一个人越需要灵活，能够满足他们不同的需求. In my experience, teaching in different countries allows me to see more ways to engage students and allow them to find ways to become passionate about what they are learning. 

富布赖特旨在发展人民与国家之间的长期关系. 我已经有设计一个教师主导的出国留学课程——冰岛课程的经验, which I co-developed and co-teach with Diane Smith and Les Bleamaster. 谁知道呢，也许我们可以开始考虑在智利开设另一个留学课程?

你和赌博娱乐平台网址大全的本科生研究人员合作过吗? Do you have plans to work with any for this project?

我过去曾与赌博娱乐平台网址大全的本科生研究人员合作过. 我最成功的研究者之一是塞缪尔·帕帕斯的24. 他想和我一起做一个独立的研究来帮助我做研究. He provided such valuable help with the secondary literature that I formally thanked him in the paper. In this work, 我指出，斯密将有组织的宗教视为任何其他特殊利益集团, willing and able to capture state power. 这篇论文发表于去年，题为《亚当·斯密与宗教重商主义》。 经济思想史与方法论研究. 2023. 41A: 27-35.) 

At the moment I do not have any plans of working with a Trinity student on the Fulbright project. 但如果有一个对自由银行历史感兴趣的学生，事情是可以改变的.

请分享你到目前为止的工作中任何有趣或不寻常的发现. 你的富布赖特项目的最终结果是什么? 

我认为有趣的是，由于我最初的假设是错误的, 我学到了比我所希望的更多的东西，并获得了第二个富布赖特奖. Mistakes are powerful learning tools!

The work of the first Fulbright led to the publication of an article in one of the leading history of economics journals (“A Smithian Reading of the Chilean Free Banking” History of Political Economy. 2023. 55.4: 775-772.) For my second Fulbright, my aim is to publish a follow-up article showing that the similarities between the Chilean free banking and the free banking that Smith describes are not an accident but the results of the implementation of Smith’s ideas in Chile.

How do you feel your Fulbright work aligns with Trinity's interdisciplinary liberal arts approach?

Exploring the possible use of Smith’s ideas in crafting the free banking laws of Chile is more of a technical work on Smith, but Smith is not only the father of economics. 他也是道德哲学教授，他教法学(法律)和修辞学. Among other things, he wrote on the history of astronomy, on ancient physics, on the external senses, and on the imitative arts. 史密斯庞大的图书馆反映了他对人类知识各个方面的兴趣. 今天史密斯学者的共识是理解他思想的一个方面, one should try to analyze it as a part of the whole.

The entanglement of economics with political thought and philosophy or moral psychology is inevitable. Much of my past work looks at Smith’s analysis of the moral implications of market interactions, 我未来的很多工作都将把市场视为社会环境, 动机和回报一样重要吗.

Any final thoughts?

I want to thank Trinity University for supporting my work and my efforts to be an ambassador of the strive for excellence that the University aims for its faculty and students.