Dr. Julius Agbor

Academy of Business Research Conference

March 27, 2023

The Academy of Business Research Conferences hold throughout the year at select locations in the United States. They bring together faculty, scholars and practitioners in business from around the globe. The spring 2023 meeting held at the Renaissance Hotel in New Orleans. The conference gathered together about 100 researchers, more than 80 percent of which…Read More

Oxford Symposium on Finance, Law and Economics of Education

January 30, 2019

The Oxford Symposiums on the Finance, Law & Economics of Education are recurring events bringing together scholars and practitioners from around the globe. This year’s meeting took place in the Charles Wellbeloved Room in Harris Manchester College, Mansfield Rd, Oxford. The symposium gathered together a relatively small number of participants compared to other conferences I…Read More

Dr. Julius Agbor

Associate Professor of Finance and Economics

Julius Agbor is an example of Africans who have surmounted the difficult challenges of being born and raised by peasant parents. I have experienced poverty as a kid so when I see young people who are disadvantaged in life I realize that I could have been one of them, he notes. Inevitably, Julius's family background oriented his research towards understanding the process by which some individuals, as well as nations, grow richer than others. He is particularly interested in the interplay between human capital, institutions and macroeconomic policy in the economic growth of nations, particularly, those in sub-Saharan Africa. Intrigued by the relatively poor economic performance of sub-Saharan African countries with seemingly higher human capital endowments, Julius ponders whether human capital formation can deliver economic prosperity to Africans without the accompanying legal, physical and institutional infrastructure. This question, he explains, quickly leads to many more. “Why are human capital institutions growth-enhancing in some countries (or continents) and growth-inhibiting in others? Is pervasive corruption evidence of weak institutions or depraved human capital? Can poor countries achieve competitiveness in international markets without attaining the requisite threshold levels of human capital in developed countries? The same question can be asked of political regime systems, rule of law, property rights, or economic freedoms. Julius goes to bed each day thinking about these questions.

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