Ricardo Hausmann Named Director of Harvard's Center for International Development

12 October 2005 - Kennedy School Dean David T. Ellwood announced today that Professor Ricardo Hausmann has been named director of Harvard's Center for International Development (CID). Hausmann, who will be CID's first director from a developing country, will assume the leadership post immediately.

"Professor Hausmann brings a wealth of experience in international development and research," said Ellwood. "His tremendous vision and expertise will help build on the critical work of CID, ensuring the Kennedy School and Harvard University continue to make a significant impact in the developing world."

"CID is an extraordinary resource for the University as we deepen our commitment to promoting development around the world," said Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers. "Having a policymaker and a scholar with Professor Hausmann's deep experience will spur the Center's cross-disciplinary approach.

With additional seed funding provided by the Office of the President, Dean Ellwood will lead the effort to establish a permanent endowment for the Center, which continues to be a vital component of the University's engagement in international development issues.

"I am thrilled that Ricardo Hausmann is taking this on," said Dani Rodrik, Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy and Director of CID's Political Economy Program. "He has exactly the kind of energy and creativity that will move CID forward."

Hausmann is professor of practice of economic development at the Kennedy School of Government. Previously, he served as the first chief economist of the Inter-American Development Bank (1994-2000); as Minister of Planning of Venezuela (1992-93); as a member of the board of the Central Bank of Venezuela; and as chair of the IMF-World Bank Development Committee.

"The enormous disparities in opportunities across countries is the fundamental challenge facing the world today," said Hausmann. "Harvard has among the best professors on development and the brightest students. The challenge for CID is to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Doing this will require that we bring the problems of the world to Harvard and bring Harvard's ideas to the world."

Hausmann's academic background includes a professorship in economics at Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administracion (IESA) (1985-91) in Caracas, Venezuela, where he founded the Center for Public Policy. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University and was a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University from 1988-91. He joined the Kennedy School in July 2000.

Hausmann's current research interests focus on issues of growth, macroeconomic stability and international finance. He developed a theory of financial crises based on the inability of countries to dominate their foreign debt in their own currency, a syndrome he labeled "original sin". The results of this research were recently published in a book called Other People's Money, which he edited with Barry Eichengreen. On growth, he has recently written a series of papers with KSG's Dani Rodrik and Andrés Velasco which question the current thinking of the determinants of growth, the techniques of diagnosing growth problems and the policy strategies that are in vogue.

He recently led teams of Harvard faculty from different schools to recommend development strategies for El Salvador, Uruguay, and Kazakhstan. He is currently working on similar projects for South Africa, China, Morocco, the State of Bihar in India, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Peru and Venezuela.

The Center for International Development at Harvard University was established on July 1, 1998 to serve as Harvard's primary center for research on sustainable international development. Housed at the Kennedy School, CID is a university-wide research center, drawing upon faculty, staff and researchers from the KSG, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the School of Public Health, the Medical School, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Design, the Law School and the Business School.

Professor Hausmann's Kennedy School Faculty Web Page

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