Eliana La Ferrara is a Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. She is President of the Econometric Society and Program Director of Development Economics for the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). She is also a J-PAL Affiliate, a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Economic Association, and an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Her research focuses on Development Economics and Political Economics, particularly on the role of social factors in economic development. Methodologically, she combines fieldwork, rigorous empirical analysis, and microeconomic theory to address questions at the intersection of economics and other social sciences. She has studied ethnic diversity, kin structure and social norms, and the effects of television on social outcomes. She has also investigated political constraints to development, with particular focus on violent conflict in Africa. She regularly collaborates with governments and international organizations to evaluate the effectiveness of development policies.
Her work has been published in leading economic journals, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics, among others.
Eliana received a PhD in Economics from Harvard University in 1999. Prior to joining Harvard, she was the Invernizzi Chair in Development Economics at Bocconi University, Milan, where she founded and directed the Laboratory for Effective Anti-poverty Policies (LEAP). She was president of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD) in 2016-2019 and of the European Economic Association in 2018. She is the recipient of the 2020 Birgit Grodal Award.
Courses
Academic Journal/Scholarly Articles
HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series
Research Papers/Reports
Sponsored projects include research, training, convening, and other initiatives externally funded through grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements. Funding sources can include the US federal government, state and local agencies, private foundations, corporations, and foreign entities (public and private).
The below list includes all sponsored projects in progress or completed within the current and past 2 calendar years, administered at the Harvard Kennedy School under the direction of the named faculty member as Principal Investigator. Please note that this list includes only those activities supported by external sponsored funding; other sources of support are not included (e.g., philanthropy, HKS or Harvard internal resources).
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Transparent Engagement
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Outside Professional Activities For Eliana La Ferrara
| Organization | Relationship |
|---|---|
| Centre for Economic Policy Research | Office in professional organization |
| Econometric Society | Office in professional organization |
| FAIR - Centre for Experimental Research on Fairness, Inequality and Rationality | Membership on a scientific or other advisory board |
| Infosys Science Foundation | Membership on a scientific or other advisory board |
| Unicredit Foundation | Membership on a scientific or other advisory board |