Bio
Ricardo Hausmann is the founder and director of Harvard University’s Growth Lab and the Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School. Under his leadership, the Growth Lab has become one of the most well regarded and influential hubs for research on economic growth and development around the world.
His scholarly contributions have had a significant impact on the study and practice of development. These include the development of the growth diagnostics and economic complexity methodologies, as well as several widely used economic concepts, such as dark matter, original sin and self-discovery. His work has been published in some of the top journals in the world, including Science, the Journal of Development Economics, the Journal of International Economics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of International Money and Finance, Economic Policy and the Journal of Economic Growth, among many others. These publications have been cited more than 54,000 times.
Since launching the Growth Lab in 2006, Hausmann has served as principal investigator for more than 50 research initiatives in 30 countries, including the United States, informing development policy, growth strategies and diversification agendas at the national, regional and city levels.
Before joining Harvard, he served as the first chief economist at the Inter-American Development Bank (1994–2000), where he created the Research Department. He has also served as Venezuela’s minister of planning (1992–1993) and as a board member of the Central Bank of Venezuela. He also served as chair of the International Monetary Fund-World Bank Development Committee. He was professor of economics at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (1985–1991) in Caracas, where he founded the Center for Public Policy. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University.