Economics

Eliana La Ferrara is currently Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. A renowned economist, Prof. Eliana La Ferrara’s research interests lie in the field of development economics, with a focus on the role of political and social factors in economics. She has studied ethnic diversity, kin structure and social norms, aspirations and the effects of television on social outcomes. She has also investigated political constraints to development, with particular focus on violent conflict in Africa. Prof. La Ferrara’s work has been published in the American Economic Review, Econometrica, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Development Economics, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, and the Journal of the European Economic Association.

La Ferrara earned her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1999 and was previously the Fondazione Invernizzi Chair in Development Economics at Bocconi University. She holds many honors and fellowships, such as: Foreign Honorary Member of the AEA, International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Fellow of the Econometric Society. Prof. La Ferrara is currently the President of the Econometric Society and has been President of the European Economic Association and of the Bureau for Research in the Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD). She is the Program Director for Development Economics at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the Director of the Laboratory for Effective Anti-poverty Policies (LEAP) at Bocconi. Prof. Eliana La Ferrara is the recipient of the 2020 Birgit Grodal Award and of numerous grants, including from the European Research Council (ERC), the European Commission, and USAID DIV. She is an affiliate of J-PAL and regularly works with major international organizations and NGOs to evaluate the effectiveness of development policies.

Seema Jayachandran is Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Prof. Jayachandran’s research focuses on environmental conservation, gender equality, health, and other microeconomic topics in developing countries.

Prof. Seema Jayachandran has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from MIT, and a master's degree in physics and philosophy from the University of Oxford where she was a Marshall Scholar. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University.

Prior to joining Princeton, Prof. Seema Jayachandran taught at Northwestern University and Stanford University. She serves on the board of directors of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and leads J-PAL's gender sector. Prof. Jayachandran is also co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research's program in Development Economics and co-editor of American Economic Review: Insights. She also serves on CARE's board of directors.

Sudipta Sarangi is Professor & Department Head at the Department of Economics, Virginia Tech. Prior to joining Virginia Tech, he was a Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at Louisiana State University and a Program Director at the National Science Foundation. He spent the 2023-24 academic year at the Collegium de Lyon as a Fellow of the French Institutes for Advanced Study. His research interests range from network theory, experimental and behavioral economics to development economics.

After obtaining his B.A. in Economics from the University of Delhi, and an M.A. in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, Prof. Sarangi received his Ph.D. in Economics from Virginia Tech.

He has been a consultant to organizations like the World Bank and FAO. Besides publishing in a wide range of journals, he currently serves on various editorial boards including journals like Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Public Economic Theory, Oxford Open Economics and Economic Modelling. While he has published a number of academic books, his book The Economics of Small Things which explains economics using everyday phenomena aimed at non-economists was released by Penguin India in 2020.

Tridip Ray is Professor in the Economics and Planning Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi. After obtaining a B.Sc. in Economics from Presidency College, University of Calcutta and in M.A. in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, Prof. Tridip Ray received his Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University. His areas of research include economic development and growth, inequality, financial development, economics of education, and applied microeconomics.

Prof. Ray’s publications include Markets, Governance, and Institutions in the Process of Economic Development, (co-edited with Ajit Mishra), Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2017 and New and Enduring Themes in Development Economics, (co-edited with Bhaskar Dutta and E. Somanathan), World Scientific: Singapore, 2009. He has co-authored several papers in various reputed journals.

Danny Quah is Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics and Dean at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS. His work is organized around world order, economic growth and development, and inequality and income mobility. Prof. Danny Quah analyzes the supply and demand of international systems, analyzing the preferences of Great Powers and the needs of the global community. His research on income mobility challenges conventional narratives on inequality, highlighting the broad diversity of economic experiences across nations. As Commissioner on the Spence-Stiglitz Commission and LSE’s Global Economic Governance Commission, and member of World Bank President's Economic Advisory Panel, Danny Quah seeks to influence global economic transformation. Finally, he holds advisory roles with organizations like the World Economic Forum, UNDP, and a range of agencies and ministries, helping shape global economic and geopolitical discourse. Prof. Quah is the author of The Global Economy’s Shifting Centre of Gravity.