Şenay Ağca

Şenay Ağca is Professor of Finance and the Chief Diversity Officer at the George Washington University School of Business. Her research interests are corporate finance, corporate-government dynamics, macro-finance, credit risk, supply chain, bioeconomy, and political economy. She has published in major journals, and her papers, including those with her PhD students, are nominated for best paper awards. She has won diverse grants, such as the National Science Foundation Grant, J. Wendell and Louise Crain Research Fellowship, GW-CIBER research grants, American Consortium on European Union Studies grant, GW-Institute for Corporate Responsibility grant, and Dean’s scholarship. She has worked at the National Science Foundation, responsible for economics program, and worked in developing and managing interdisciplinary programs such as COVID-19, Future Manufacturing, Bioeconomy, Science of Broadening Participation, Harnessing the Data Revolution, the Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison for Industry, and 2026 NSF idea machine. She is a member of the Advisory Board at a joint NSF-NBER project on advancing external funding opportunities for underrepresented institutions. She has also worked as a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund and Sciences Po at various periods since 2006.

Defense Contracts Are Going to the Best Connected, Not Necessarily the Best

In new research, Şenay Ağca and Deniz Igan use the shock of the September 11 attacks and declaration of war on Afghanistan...

Latest news

Innovators Respond to Their Presidential Candidate Winning With More Innovation

Does an inventor’s political identity influence their productivity? In a new paper, Joseph Engelberg, Runjing Lu, William Mullins, and Richard Townsend examine the impacts of the 2008 and 2016 United States presidential elections on Democrat and Republican inventors, with a particular focus on the quantity and quality of patents after the country elects a new president.

Letter to the Editor: Former FTC and DOJ Chief Economists Urge Separation of Economic and Legal Analysis in Merger Guidelines

Seventeen former chief economists of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division urge current Agency heads to separate the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines to strengthen the role of the latter in merger review.

Why the Kroger-Albertsons Merger Is a Mess for Consumers

Grocers Kroger and Albertsons want to merge, which would make them the second biggest retail food chain and, according to them, enhance their ability to compete with Walmart and Costco and offer lower prices to consumers. Christine P. Bartholomew writes that the promises of more competition and lower prices for consumers are unlikely to manifest, and thus the Federal Trade Commission should block the deal.  

After Neoliberalism

The following is an excerpt from Martin Daunton's new book, "The Economic Government of the World: 1933-2023," out November 14.

US Taxpayers Should Not Be Subsidizing Harmful Big Oil Mergers

Chevron and ExxonMobil claim their announced mergers with Hess and Pioneer take advantage of market efficiencies, but a closer look reveals an antiquated tax provision likely sweetening these dangerous deals. Antitrust authorities must carefully review the serious risks entailed in these proposed mergers. In parallel, the United States federal government needs to end large tax-free reorganizations—the most egregious way in which American taxpayers are subsidizing monopolistic practices, writes Niko Lusiani.

Seeing Others

In an excerpt from her new book, Seeing Others, sociologist Michèle Lamont describes the impact of neoliberal ideas on the working class.

How Well Consumers Know Prices Matters for Tax Policy

The effectiveness of tax policy depends on whether sellers pass on changes in tax rates to consumers through changes in price. In new research, Felix Montag, Robin Mamrak, Alina Sagimuldina, and Monika Schnitzer investigate how this tax pass-through in turn depends on how much consumers know about prices. They show that if consumers are not aware of how prices for the same product vary between sellers, then they will be unaffected by tax changes intended to increase or decrease consumption.