Joseph Kalt

Joseph P. Kalt is the Ford Foundation Professor (Emeritus) of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Along with Prof. Stephen Cornell of The University of Arizona, he founded and directed the Harvard Kennedy School Project on Indigenous Governance and Development (formerly the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development) from 1987 to 2025. The Project works for and with self-governing Indigenous nations in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and beyond to provide research, advisory services, and leadership education on what is working, and what is not working, to strengthen Indigenous communities. Prof. Kalt is the author of numerous studies on Indigenous economic development and nation building, co-editor (with Prof. Cornell) of What Can Tribes Do? Strategies and Institutions in American Indian Economic Development, a principal author of the Project's The State of the Native Nations, a principal author of Rebuilding Native Nations:  Strategies for Governance and Development (ed. M. Jorgensen), and co-editor of Universities and Indian Country (with Dennis Norman).

Prof. Kalt has been a visiting professor at The University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law and Eller College of Management, as well as Arizona’s American Indian Studies Department and the University of Auckland’s (NZ) Business School.  He has also served as faculty chair for nation building programs at The University of Arizona’s Native Nations Institute and the faculty chair of the Harvard University Native American Program.  At the Harvard Kennedy School, he has served as Academic Dean for Research, chair of degree programs, chair of Ph.D. programs, and chair of the economics and quantitative methods section. Prof. Kalt is vice-chairman of the Board of the White Mountain Apache Tribe’s Fort Apache Heritage Foundation, Inc. and was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Native Governance Center. He has also served on the Navajo Nation’s President’s Council of Economic Advisors and is on the advisory board of the Chickasaw Nation’s Community Development Entity. In 2023, Prof. Kalt and his wife, Judy Gans, endowed the Senior Fellowship in Indigenous Governance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, ensuring in perpetuity that among the world leaders Harvard routinely hosts will be accomplished and inspiring leaders in Indigenous governance and development.

In addition to his work in Indigenous governance and development, Prof. Kalt has also taught and published extensively on antitrust and industrial regulation, taxation, international trade, energy and natural resources, and public choice. Early in his career, Prof. Kalt served as a Junior Staff Economist on the President’s (Gerald Ford) Council of Economic  Advisers; and he served as a commissioner on the federal Aviation Safety Commission. From the mid-1980s through 2018, he was a senior economist with Compass Lexecon and its predecessors. Prof. Kalt testified frequently as an expert before the U.S. Congress and various state, federal, tribal and international arbitration and judicial tribunals.  In addition, he served as an arbitrator and mediator in disputes in the coal, oil and gas, and railroad sectors, as well as in tribal-state relations.  Prof. Kalt has also been an advisor on matters of regulation, taxation, and economic development to various national and international governments, including the U.S., Thailand, China, Canada, Poland, Indonesia, and numerous Indigenous communities. He is a member of the National Advisory Board of the National Institute for Civil Discourse, and he is the vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the Sonoran Institute.

Prof. Kalt is a native of Tucson, Arizona. He and his wife, Judy Gans (MPA 2003), have two children and four grandchildren. He received his Ph.D. (1980) and M.A. (1977) in Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles, and his B.A. (1973) in Economics from Stanford University.