The field of Development Economics counts a number of famous Economists, including those who are either a Nobel laureate or Clark Medal winner, two of the most prestigious prizes in Economics. In the books, journal articles, videos, blogs and podcasts you should have encountered the following people: Ha Joon Chang, Paul Collier, Ester Duflo, William Easterly, Dambisa Moyo, Jeffrey Sachs, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz.
For more extensive information on their research and links to their CVs and educational institutions visit the People & Institutions part of the UWCSEA-East Economics Research Guide.
Amartya Sen
"An Indian economist and a Nobel laureate. He has made contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, economic and social justice, economic theories of famines, and indexes of the measure of well-being of citizens of developing countries. He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998. In 1999, he was awarded with Bharat Ratna 'the highest civilian award in India' by the President of India.
He is currently the Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. He is also a senior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, distinguished fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge."
Joseph Stiglitz
"Stiglitz helped create a new branch of economics, "The Economics of Information," exploring the consequences of information asymmetries and pioneering such pivotal concepts as adverse selection and moral hazard, which have now become standard tools not only of theorists, but of policy analysts. He has made major contributions to macro-economics and monetary theory, to development economics and trade theory, to public and corporate finance, to the theories of industrial organization and rural organization, and to the theories of welfare economics and of income and wealth distribution. In the 1980s, he helped revive interest in the economics of R&D."
William Easterly
"William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University, joint with Africa House, and Co-Director of NYU’s Development Research Institute. He is editor of Aid Watch blog, Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and Co-Editor of the Journal of Development Economics. He is the author of The White Man’s Burden: How the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (Penguin, 2006), The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (MIT, 2001), 3 other co-edited books, and 59 articles in refereed economics journals. His areas of expertise are the determinants of long-run economic growth, the political economy of development, and the effectiveness of foreign aid. He has worked in most areas of the developing world, most heavily in Africa, Latin America, and Russia.His work has helped explain the circumstances in which markets do not work well, and how selective government intervention can improve their performance."
"One of the leading heterodox economists and institutional economists specialising in development economics. Currently a Reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge, Chang is the author of several widely-discussed policy books, most notably Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002)."