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The Development Research Institute (DRI) is an independent and non-partisan organization that seeks to expand the number and diversity of serious commentators on economic development.

DRI is home to a team of researchers and students whose goal is to have a positive impact on the lives of the poor, who deserve the benefit of high-quality economic research applied to the problems of world poverty. Through their work, they seek to expand the number and diversity of serious commentators on economic development, primarily in emerging economies but also in the western and developed world.

DRI is affiliated with Africa House, an interdisciplinary institute at NYU devoted to the study of economic, political, and social issues on the African continent, as well as contemporary African art. 

DRI also works with the Center for Technology and Economic Development (CTED), located at NYU in Abu Dhabi. CTED combines economic principles, technological advances, and human-centric design to create innovative solutions for the problems experienced in emerging regions. 

DRI gratefully acknowledges generous support from New York University and The John Templeton Foundation, The C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, and The Thomas W. Smith Foundation.

Read more about DRI in the media.

William Easterly
CO-DIRECTOR

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William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University and co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute, which won the 2009 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge in Development Cooperation Award. He is the author of three books: The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor (2014), The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (2006), which won the FA Hayek Award from the Manhattan Institute, and The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (2001).

He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed academic articles, and has written columns and reviews for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Review of Books, and Washington Post. He has served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Development Economics and as Director of the blog Aid Watch. He is a Research Associate of NBER, senior fellow at BREAD, and nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings. Foreign Policy magazine named him among the Top 100 Global Public Intellectuals in 2008 and 2009, and Thomson Reuters listed him as one of Highly Cited Researchers of 2014. He was named among 100 Scientist Stars of Twitter by Science magazine. He is also the 11th most famous native of Bowling Green, Ohio.

Yaw Nyarko
CO-DIRECTOR

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Yaw Nyarko is Professor of Economics at New York University (NYU) and the Director of NYU Africa House and the Center for Technology and Economic Development (CTED), as well as Co-Director of the Development Research Institute (DRI). As Co-Director of DRI, he was awarded the 2009 BBVA Frontiers in Knowledge Award on Economic Development Cooperation. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD).

His research interests focus on the areas of economic development, theoretical economics, models of human capital as engines of economic growth, brain drain and skills acquisition, labor economics, and migration. His current research focuses on technology and economic development, commodities exchanges and markets in Africa, and determinants and returns of labor migration from South Asia in the UAE, as well as the impacts of various policy measures on the mobility of labor within the UAE.

He is the Chair of the Econometric Society Africa Regional Standing Committee. He has served as a consultant to organizations including the African Development Bank, the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Social Science Research Council. As the former Vice Provost of NYU, he managed a portfolio that included the oversight and establishment of campuses in Abu Dhabi, Accra, and Shanghai. Yaw Nyarko received his B.A. from the University of Ghana and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University.


Rajeev Dehejia
CO-DIRECTOR

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Rajeev is Professor of Economics and Public Service; Associate Dean, Academic Affairs; Director of Policy Specialization at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Rajeev's research interests include: econometric methods for program evaluation, external validity of experimental and non-experimental methods, financial incentives and fertility decisions, religion and consumption insurance, and the causes and consequences of child labor. 

Rajeev's articles have appeared in The Journal of Law and Economics, The Journal of Human Resources, The Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, the Journal of the American Statistical Association, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Econometrics, the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Development Economics, and Economic Development and Cultural Change. Rajeev is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research,  a Research Fellow at the Institut zur Zukunft der Arbeit (IZA), and a Research Network Fellow at CESifo. He is a coeditor of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics.

DRI hosts distinguished scholars and practitioners from around NYU and the globe.

Past Visiting Scholars:

 

Please refer to the Team tab in the About page.

Please refer to the Team tab in the About page.

Please refer to the Team tab in the About page.