{"id":311,"date":"2023-03-28T20:03:52","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T20:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/ored\/?p=311"},"modified":"2023-10-10T21:30:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-10T21:30:06","slug":"student-research-spotlight-luis-martinez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/ored\/2023\/03\/28\/student-research-spotlight-luis-martinez\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Research Spotlight: Luis Martinez"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Luis
Luis Martinez is a DEI-REEJ research intern who will be presenting April 11, 2023 at the Spring Symposium about the effects of capital-labor deregulation on local economic growth and welfare.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How do rational people discuss the economy, inflation, de-industrialization, labor unions, and profits today? \u201cWhile we can each form our own opinions from reading and consuming the literature from the experts, it seems there are many experts defending positions that are unique and contradict one another,\u201d according to UM-Flint undergraduate student Lu\u00eds Martinez. They are working, with guidance from associate professor of economics Adam Lutzker, on a research project aimed at shedding some light on those various models, where they come from, and their assumptions and biases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martinez started out aiming their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion \/ Racial, Economic, & Environmental Justice research project towards the Starbucks unionization and considering the way unions impact things like inflation. As the project progressed, however, Martinez found that even when you zoom in on a cross-section like unions and inflation, there are multiple \u2018economic schools of thought\u2019 which each bring their own incomplete model to the examination. This has led Martinez to shift focus and survey current economic theory as it relates to the topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are addressing this problem by creating a pamphlet of comparative macro-economic theory to help shed light on the various models, what they focus on and what their weaknesses are. They are also doing some community-engaged research and examining some of the ways local UAW chapters are restructuring their internal election processes as well as looking into some of the food co-op structures that are maturing in Flint\u2019s north side neighborhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our limited research and computation ability up until this point, or some point possibly in the near future, has created this condition where even researchers have to make choices in what we focus on and what we have to leave out. Essayist Anais Nin has said, \u201cWe don\u2019t see things as they are; we see them as we are.\u201d Quite naturally, this leads many theorists and schools to create models that fit the world from their point of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Spring Symposium will take place in the Happenings Room and move to the Kiva for the featured speaker.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To this, Martinez adds, \u201cany \u2018social truth\u2019 that tries to mask itself as the \u2018natural and ultimate truth\u2019 is quite troublesome in determining a social impact. There are some economic understandings that tend to make such claims.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As co-founder of the Center for Applied Rationality Julia Galef has said, \u2018let\u2019s really understand as precisely as we can what our models are, and where they diverge from each other and why they diverge. And so the goal is framed as understanding the landscape of the different models and not as shifting someone\u2019s opinion.\u201d Martinez is answering Galef\u2019s call in regard to economic philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith the way economics is presented, especially in my experience of learning it since high school,\u201d Martinez says, \u201cI\u2019ve been exposed to lots of these \u2018definitive principles,\u2019 but I had trouble understanding where these principles come from and what was the theoretical underpinning to reach them. It wasn\u2019t until a broad study of each of them that things really started to click.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their analysis of Flint, they are beginning to engage with folks in the community to examine some of the ways that these theories are interacting with each other in the real world. Luis is initiating conversations with folks involved in some of the co-op endeavors on the north side of Flint, UAW leadership about their internal transition to a democratic leadership selection process from their old system of appointments, and looking into other ways that we are grinding out the values decisions between Chicago-school laissez faire theories and some of the leftist heterodoxy present in 21st century Michigan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to understanding what has happened to Flint and advocating for economic justice, all sides of the issue matter not just the perspectives of corporate leaders or blue collar workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How do rational people discuss the economy, inflation, de-industrialization, labor unions, and profits today? \u201cWhile we can each form our own opinions from reading and consuming the literature from the experts, it seems there are many experts defending positions that are unique and contradict one another,\u201d according to UM-Flint undergraduate student Lu\u00eds Martinez. They are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":539,"featured_media":329,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[36,10,60,110,111,45,12,15,108,18,19,17,109,22,114,112,113,28,30],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-research-spotlight","category-um-flint-research","tag-applied-learning","tag-collaborative-research","tag-diversity","tag-economic-justice","tag-environmental-justice","tag-equity","tag-featured","tag-higher-education","tag-inclusion","tag-office-of-research","tag-office-of-research-and-economic-development","tag-ored","tag-racial-justice","tag-research","tag-social-justice","tag-student-led-research","tag-symposium","tag-um-flint","tag-undergraduate-students"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/ored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/ored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/ored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/ored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/539"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/ored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/ored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/ored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/ored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/ored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/ored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/ored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}