Eliana La Ferrara

Eliana La Ferrara is Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. She was previously the Fondazione Romeo and Enrica Invernizzi Chair in Development Economics at Bocconi University, where she serves as Scientific Director of the Laboratory for Effective Anti-Poverty Policies (LEAP). She received her PhD in Economics from Harvard University (1999). She is Program Director of Development Economics for the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). She is 2nd Vice-President of the Econometric Society and was President of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD) in 2016-2019 and President of the European Economic Association for the year 2018. She is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, Foreign Honorary Member of the American Economic Association, and International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2020 she received the Birgit Grodal Award from the European Economic Association. Se is an Affiliate of J-PAL and regularly works with the World Bank and other international organizations to evaluate the effectiveness of development policies. Eliana’s research covers topics related to Development Economics and Political Economics, particularly the role of political and social factors in economics. She has published on the topics of ethnic diversity, social norms, conflict, institutions and mass media. Her work has been published in prestigious journals such as American Economic Review, Econometrica, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, and Journal of the European Economic Association. She has also received several grants from the European Research Council (ERC), the European Commission, USAID DIV, etc.