Lant Pritchett

Professor of the Practice of International Development
Faculty Chair of the MPA/ID Program
Harvard Kennedy School
Office Address
Littauer-313
Mailing Address
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Mailbox 51
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Contact
Phone: 617-496-4562
Fax: 617-496-2554
Email: Lant_Pritchett@ksg.harvard.edu
Assistant
Alexander Kent (617-496-6435)
Lant Pritchett

Profile

Brief Bio

Lant Pritchett is Professor of the Practice of Economic Development at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (as of July 1, 2007).

In addition he works as a consultant to Google.org, is a non-resident fellow of the Center for Global Development, and is a senior fellow of BREAD. He is also co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics.

He graduated from Brigham Young University in 1983 with a B.S. in Economics and in 1988 from MIT with a PhD in Economics.

After finishing at MIT Lant joined the World Bank, where he held a number of positions in the Bank's research complex between 1988 and 1998, including as an adviser to Lawrence Summers when he was Vice President 1991-1993. From 1998 to 2000 he worked in Indonesia. From 2000 to 2004 Lant was on leave from the World Bank as a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 2004 he returned to the World Bank and moved to India where he worked until May 2007.

He has been part of the team producing many World Bank reports, including: World Development Report 1994: Infrastructure for Development, Assessing Aid: What Works, What Doesn't and Why (1998), Better Health Systems for Indias Poor: Findings, Analysis, and Options (2003),World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for the Poor, Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reforms (2005).

In addition he has authored (alone or with one of his 22 co-authors) over 50 papers published in refereed journals, chapters in books, or as articles, as least some of which are sometimes cited. In addition to economics journals his work has appeared in specialized journals in demography, education, and health. In 2006 he published his first solo authored book Let Their People Come.

Lant, an American national, was born in Utah in 1959 and raised in Boise Idaho. Perhaps because of this, he has worked in, or traveled to, over forty countries and has lived in three other countries: Argentina (1978-80), Indonesia (1998-2000), and India (2004-2007).

Lant has been married since 1981 to Diane Tueller Pritchett and together they have three children.

[And nothing else. Some bios list non-family and non-professional accomplishments like climbing Everest or playing the cello making it seem as if all of the rest was just tossed off. I believe the only point of this is to make the rest of us, who collapse on the couch and watch Friends reruns at the end of the day, feel like slackers. I think getting the above done while being a husband and father to three children is plenty.]

Courses

Year

  • PED-401Y Applications and Cases in International Development I
  • PED-250Y-A Second-Year Policy Analysis Seminar

Media Expertise

Lant Pritchett welcomes media inquiries on the following subjects:

Additional experts may be found by clicking on each subject listed. You may contact faculty directly or if you need assistance contact the Communications Office at 617-495-1115.

Research

For a complete list of faculty citations from 2001 - present, please visit the Harvard Kennedy School Research Report Online.

Selected Publication Citations:

  • Academic Journals
    • Pritchett, Lant and Deon Filmer. "Estimating Wealth Effects Without Expenditure of Data - Or Tears: An Application to Enrollments in States of India." Demography (February 2001).
    • Pritchett, Lant, Sudarno Sumarto, Asep Suryahadi, and Menno Pradhan. "Eating Like Which 'Joneses'?: An Iterative Solution to Setting the Poverty Line 'Reference Group'." Review of Income and Wealth 47.4 (December 2001).
    • Pritchett, Lant. "Where Has All the Education Gone?" World Bank Economic Review (December 2001).
    • Lindauer, David and Lant Pritchett. "What’s the Big Idea? Three Generations of Development Advice" Economia (2002).
    • Filmer, Deon, Jeffrey S. Hammer, and Lant Pritchett. "Weak Links in the Chain II: A Prescription for Health Policy in Poor Countries." World Bank Research Observer 17.1 (2002): 47-66.
    • Pritchett, Lant. "Comment on: Institutions, Trade, and Growth." Journal of Monetary Economics 50.1 (January 2003): 163-165.
    • Sumarto, Sudarno, Asep Suryahadi, and Lant Pritchett. "Safety Nets or Safety Ropes? Dynamic Benefit Incidence of Two Crisis Programs in Indonesia." World Development 31.7 (July 2003).
    • Pritchett, Lant, and Michael Woolcock. "Solutions When the Solution Is the Problem: Arraying the Disarray in Development." World Development 32.2 (February 2004): 191-212.
  • Book Chapters
    • Braun, Matías, Ricardo Hausmann, and Lant Pritchett. "The Proliferation of Sovereigns: Are There Lessons for Integration?" Integrating the Americas: FTAA and Beyond. Ed. Antoni Estevadeordal, Dani Rodrik, Alan M. Taylor, and Andrés Velasco. Harvard University Press, 2004.
  • Books
    • Peters, David H., Abdo S. Yazbeck, Rashmi R. Sharma, G.N.V. Ramana, Lant H. Pritchett and Adam Wagstaff. Better Health Systems for India’s Poor: Findings, Analysis, and Options. World Bank, 2002.
  • HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series
    • Hausmann, Ricardo, Lant Pritchett, and Dani Rodrik. "Growth Accelerations." KSG Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP04-030, July 2004.
  • Research Papers/Reports
    • Pritchett, Lant. "Indonesia Poverty Assessment." World Bank Report, April 2001.
    • Pritchett, Lant. "India Health Report." World Bank Report, April 2001.
    • Pritchett, Lant, Anna Wetterberg, and Vivi Alatas. "Voice Lessons: Evidence on Social Organizations, Government Mandated Organizations, and Governance from Indonesia's Local Level Institutions Study." Working Paper, October 2001.
    • Pritchett, Lant. "A Toy Collection, a Socialist Star and a Democratic Dud: Growth Theory, Vietnam, and the Philippines." Working Paper, November 2001.
    • Pritchett, Lant. "It Pays to Be Ignorant: A Simple Political Economy of Rigorous Program Evaluation." Working Paper, November 2001.
    • Pritchett, Lant. "The Inculcation of Beliefs is Not Third Party Contractible." Working Paper, December 2001.
    • Pritchett, Lant. "Ought Ain't Is: An Economist's Midnight Thoughts on Education." Working Paper, December 2001.
    • Braun, Matias, Ricardo Hausmann, and Lant Pritchett. "The Proliferation of Sovereigns: Are there Lessons for Integration." Working Paper, May 2002.
    • Pritchett, Lant and Michael Woolcock. "Solutions When The Solution is the Problem: An Array of the Disarray in Development.” Center for Global Development Working Paper #10, September 2002.
    • Pritchett, Lant, Sudarno Sumarto, and Asep Suryahadi. "Targeted Programs in an Economic Crisis: Empirical Findings from the Experience of Indonesia." SMERU Research Institute Working Paper, October 2002.
  • Reviews
    • Pritchett, Lant. Comment on "Impacts of the Indonesian Economic Crisis: Price Changes and the Poor" by James Levinson, Steven Berry, and Jed Friedman. Managing Currency Crises in Emerging Markets, Ed. Michael P. Dooley and Jeffrey A. Frankel. University of Chicago, 2003: 393.