Shenaya Dias

Major: Economics

Biography: Shenaya Dias was born and raised in Negombo, a small coastal commercial city on the island of Sri Lanka. She is the co-founder and Secretary of the Economics Society at Fordham and the treasurer for Lighthouse Christian Fellowship. She is conducting her departmental honors thesis under Dr. Janis Barry on corruption and poverty in Sri Lanka. Shenaya plans to attend law school with her areas of interest being education, public interest, and intellectual property after graduation.

Project Title: Framework for Corruption and Poverty with Special Application to Sri Lanka

Faculty Mentor: Janis Barry, Department of Economics

Abstract: The impact of poverty and corruption on growing countries raises the question of how certain countries can flourish while debt and minimal development tie down others. Multiple scholarly works on poverty and corruption have bridged the gap for this discrepancy in economic development. I use Sri Lanka as a case study of a third-world country experiencing high levels of corruption to showcase its role in rising poverty levels while posing limitations on the country’s maximum potential for growth. My research explores bribery in the judicial system (Wu 2009), misdirected aid intended for humanitarian organizations (Stirrat 2006), and corruption in policing (Lindberg & Orjuela 2011). Through this, I explore the factors that foster a more productive economy in Sri Lanka.