Zsófia Barta
Assistant Professor
Research
Zsófia Barta is a political economist. Her main research interests center on the politics of public debt, covering diverse aspects of public finances from societal conflicts surrounding austerity to the influence of the markets for government debt on policy choice. Her first book, In The Red: The Politics of Public Debt Accumulation in Developed Countries (University of Michigan Press, 2018) explored the variation in countries' ability to control their debt. Her second book, Rating Politics Sovereign Credit Ratings and Democratic Choice in Prosperous Developed Countries (Oxford University Press, 2023) focused on the influence that sovereign credit rating agencies exercise over politics and policy choice in developed democracies. She also published a series of journal articles related to the issue of sovereign credit ratings in the Socio-Economic Review, the Review of International Political Economy , Comparative Political Studies , the Journal of Public Policy and the Journal of European Integration among others.
Teaching
Zsófia Barta teaches courses in comparative and international political economy and public policy, with a focus on prosperous developed countries within Europe and beyond.
Awards and distinctions
“In The Red: The Politics of Public Debt Accumulation in Developed Countries” received honorable mentions for the American Political Science Association European Politics and Society Section Best Book Award; the International Studies Association International Political Economy Annual Best Book Award; and the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics Alice Amsden Book Award. Barta also won the EUSA Best 2017 Conference Paper Award and was on The Washington Post’s list of ‘The best work on political economy in 2018’.
Background
Barta holds a Ph.D. in European political economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an M.A. in international economics from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University and an M.Sc. in finance from the Budapest University of Economics. Prior to taking up her current position at the Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po, she worked as associate professor at the University at Albany, held a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence, a German Kennedy Memorial Fellowship at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University, and a Senior Core Fellowship at the Central European University.
Contact
Thèmes de recherche
Public debt, bond markets, financial markets, policy-making, credit rating agencies, sovereign ratings, public policy, democratic governance, international institutions, fiscal policies, comparative political economy
