Roger Betancourt

• Biography
• Research

Biography

Professor Roger R. Betancourt received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 1970. He joined the Faculty at Maryland in 1969 and became Emeritus in 2007. Among his main accomplishments at Maryland he would highlight Ph. D. dissertation advising. He is the first recipient in the Economics Department of the Mentorship Award from the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences for this activity. His former students have raised funds to endow a Fellowship in Applied Economics recognizing this activity. The first Fellowship was awarded during the 2010-2011 academic year. While professor Betancourt no longer has any standard teaching or administrative duties at Maryland, he continues engaged in research on a regular basis as well as advising on a selective one.

Throughout his career Professor Betancourt has been interested in the use of economics to understand real world problems. This orientation led him to become a frequent visitor at US and European business schools in various teaching and research capacities: INSEAD (Fountainebleau, France) in the 1980's and early 1990's; the Kermit O. Hanson Visiting Chair at the University of Washington Graduate School of Business in 1996; and Departamento de Gestion de Empresas, Universidad Publica de Navarra (Pamplona, Spain) from 1997 to the present. He was Affiliate Faculty in the Marketing Department of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at Maryland from 2004-2010.

In terms of public service contributions Professor Betancourt would highlight one item. His role as one of the founders of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy in 1990.  The latter is described in "The Origins of ASCE", which is available in the development section of the personal website. This association quickly became and still remains an important forum in the United States for well informed discussions of the Cuban economy broadly defined. He was its first President (1990-1992) and remains a frequent participant in the intellectual activities of the association, especially its annual meetings. The paper and proceedings of the latter are available at www.ascecuba.org.

With respect to research activities Professor Betancourt's major contributions lie in three substantive areas: production, a brief introduction to his main long term contributions in this area is available at "Capital Utilization", in S. Durlauf and L. Blume The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, The Macmillan Press, 2008; retailing and distribution, a recent book that encompasses many of his contributions in this area is the reference work The Economics of Retailing and Distribution, Edward Elgar Publishing, Ltd., 2004 [paperback edition (2006), Chinese translation by Renmin University Press (2009)]; and institutions and development, an illustration of  contributions in this area is "Civil Liberties and Economic Development"(with A. BenYishay), lead article in Journal of Institutional Economics, September 2010. Currently, Professor Betancourt is involved in several research projects that cover a variety of topics in the last two substantive areas.

For additional details on Professor Betancourt's work and activities please click on his vita and/or website above.

Areas of Interest:
applied microeconomics, economic development, retailing and distribution, institutions

Research

Please visit http://www.econ.umd.edu/~betancourt for more information.