About This Site

I am a Marketing Analyst at Stripes39, a premiere SEO agency located in Pioneer Square, Seattle. On the side, I conduct research and write financial commentary at Mirhaydari Capital.

While spending the majority of every day connected to the Internet conducting research, writing, and building relationships (read: Facebook, Tweet, GChat) has given me the necessary tools to venture into the world of blogging, my true passion for writing stems from my attempts of maintaining a grain of academic integrity while working in a field which has little to do with my background of economics and international relations.

The issues that I’m most passionate about are:

• What makes international development efforts effective? Why do some organizations bring overwhelming social and financial returns while others do more harm than good?
• What are the most effective education policies that provide the right structures, which not only effectively trains teachers but also provides students with the right incentives to learn?
• How do we build financial markets that are safe, efficient, and transparent?

I have a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Washington – Seattle in Economics and International Studies. I pride myself at the fact that I tend to not get confined by ideological viewpoints that many in the field seem to be allured to. This might be a result of my (relatively) short foray in the field of study, but I believe that most of the tough issues that I’m interested in (international development, education, finance) don’t have all-encompassing solutions.

Before pursuing my professional life, one of my eye-opening experiences came from working with a microfinance organization named Lumana Credit. Although I only spent two months working in Atorkor, Ghana, having the opportunity to work with a financial organization which focuses so much on understanding the daily routines of clients, considering the existing constraints of financial and social institutions, and preaching educational attainment and physical health embodies qualities which I value. Consequently, my work with Lumana is also the reason why I started this blog.

The goal of this blog is to illuminate those values not only to you, my audience, but also to myself. It’s easy to think of the field of economics as one dictated by old white men with beards who use complicated financial models to explain phenomena a seven-year-old could explain. To a certain extent, the field of economics has lost its heart. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t think there are answers to many of the questions that I’ll tackle with my writing, but I do hope that along the way, this blog will not only remind you but also myself that economics has had a heart all along.

-Xiaohan Zhang

p.s. while you’re at it, follow me on Twitter and connect with me on Linkedin