Margaret Maurer-Fazio is the Betty Doran Stangle Professor of Applied Economics at Bates College. She holds a Ph.D. in economics and an advanced certificate in Asian Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. She studied Chinese at the Inter-university Program for Chinese Language in Taipei. She received both her M.A. and Honors B.A. in economics at the University of Western Ontario. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary China and on the Advisory Board of the Chinese Women Economists Network.
Maurer-Fazio's research program focuses on labor market developments in China. She is currently investigating the both the hiring practices of Chinese firms and the economic status of China's ethnic minorities. This complements her work on the integration of China's rapidly changing urban labor markets with its particular emphasis on the interactions of rural migrants and urban residents and the plight of laid-off urban workers. She is also engaged in research on regional wage inequality and gender wage differentials in urban China. She is co-editor of The Workers' State Meets the Market: Labour in China's Transition, and has published a number of articles in economics and China journals.

Her teaching includes courses on labor economics, the Chinese economy, the Japanese economy, introductory microeconomics, and the nexus between environmental protection and economic development in China. During her time at Bates College, Maurer-Fazio has co-directed four fall-semester programs in Nanjing, brought students to China and Taiwan several times for 5-week intensive courses, and taught for a semester in the Associated Kyoto Program.

She spent three months as a Research Visitor at IZA in fall 2008 and joined IZA as a Research Fellow in April 2009.