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Name: Catia Batista
E-mail: catia.batista@economics.ox.ac.uk
Place of birth: Lisboa, Portugal
City of residence: Oxford, United Kingdom
Years in the US: 5
Personal webpage/blog: http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/members/catia.batista Undergraduate Degree: Licenciatura in Economics, Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Lisboa, Portugal
Post-graduate Degree: PhD in Economics, University of Chicago, USA; MSc in Economics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Current professional status: Research Fellow, University of Oxford
Research interests: Macroeconomics, Economic Growth and Trade, International Migration, Applied Econometrics
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To be or not to be an immigrant in the US
What brought you to the USA?
Studying for a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago.
Name the three most valuable lessons you have learned in this country (at work or not).
Paradoxically, or maybe not, the value of diversity. This is really the lesson to learn in the US, I think. Everything else is a bit related and has to do with the best things I found in the American educational system: being open and humble when listening to new ideas, rewarding merit instead of hierarchy and bureaucracy.
When did you leave the USA to go to England? Did you consider returning to Portugal? Why/Why not?
I came to England after completing my PhD. We (my husband and I both got our PhD’s at the same time) did not go back to Portugal because there were not good enough professional perspectives for both of us at the time.
How do you compare the working conditions between the USA, England and Portugal?
Working conditions in the USA and the UK (at least at the University of Chicago and at the University of Oxford, which are the ones I know best) are not so different: there are abundant resources for research, both in terms of financial resources and agglomeration of talented people to interact with. This is unfortunately generally not the case in Portugal.
What do you think Portugal is still better at?
People. They are creative, ingenious and friendly.
What would you like to see changed in the Portuguese educational system?
More financial resources are clearly needed to create the conditions necessary to attract some of the best people to the country, and overcome the small dimension and peripheral location of the country.
The daily life in the US
| Favourite news from Portugal: |
Ultima Hora - Publico |
| Ideal weekend program in your US city: |
Spending a day out by the lake (in the Spring /Summer!), enjoying Chicago’s great museums and restaurants. |
| Portuguese neighbourhood: |
None that I know of.
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