DEC Lecture Series

The Development Economics Vice Presidency (DEC) launched its lecture series in April 2005 to bring distinguished academics to the Bank to present and discuss new findings in international development. The purpose of the Lecture Series is to introduce ideas on cutting edge research, challenge our thinking, and reexamine current development theories and practices.

The DEC Lecture Series is chaired by Indermit Gill, Chief Economist of the World Bank Group and Senior Vice President for Development Economics.

2018–2019 Upcoming DEC Lectures

Alice Evans, King’s College London

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2018
Alice Evans researches how to improve workers’ rights in global production networks. She is currently writing a book on “Corporate Accountability: Causes and Consequences” (OUP). This examines: why some countries have made businesses liable for abuses in their global supply chains; the impact of such legislation; and the pathways to multilateral regulation. Through this comparative study, Alice investigates the move towards regulated globalization. She has published on: the politics of pro-worker reforms; the causes of falling inequality in Latin America; social movements; rising support for gender equality; cities as catalysts of social change; and the impact of the MDGs. A key insight of her work is that social change accelerates when we see that others are changing. She is a Lecturer at King's College London, a Research Associate at Harvard, with previous appointments at Cambridge and the LSE.
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Gita Gopinath, Harvard University
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2018
Gita Gopinath is the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and of Economics at Harvard University. Her research focuses on International Finance and Macroeconomics. She is co-director of the International Finance and Macroeconomics program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, member of the economic advisory panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Economic Adviser to the Chief Minister of Kerala state (India), a co-editor at the American Economic Review, co-editor of the current Handbook of International Economics and was managing editor of the Review of Economic Studies. She also served as a member of the Eminent Persons Advisory Group on G-20 Matters for India's Ministry of Finance. In 2011, she was chosen as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. In 2014, she was named one of the top 25 economists under 45 by the IMF. Before coming to Harvard, she was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. She received a PhD in economics from Princeton University, a Master' in economics from Delhi University and University of Washington, and BA in economics from Delhi University.
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Nancy Qian, Northwestern University

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2018
Nancy Qian is a professor of MEDS. She is a native of Shanghai, China, and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT. Prior to Kellogg, Professor Qian taught at Yale University and Brown University, and was a visiting scholar at the department of economics at Harvard University while she was post-doctoral fellow of the prestigious Harvard Academy Scholars program.
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Jessica Goldberg, University of Maryland

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2019
Jessica Goldberg is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, an Affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, and a Non Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development. Her research interests are in development and labor economics. Currently, she is working on field experiments about credit and savings in Malawi and Rwanda, the effect of social pressure on consumption and savings in Malawi and Uganda, and the role of social networks in outreach to treat communicable disease in India.
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Seema Jayachandran, Northwestern University

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2019
Seema Jayachandran's research focuses on economic issues in developing countries. Her work explores the determinants of children's health and education; the environment; gender equality; labor markets; and political economy. She is a recipient of a Sloan Research Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Early Career Development grant. She serves as a reviewing editor for Science, co-editor for the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, and associate editor for the Quarterly Journal of Economics and Journal of Economic Perspectives. She is an affiliate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a board member and chair of the Gender Sector for the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab.
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Eliana La Ferrara, Bocconi University

MONDAY, MAY 6, 2019
Fondazione Romeo ed Enrica Invernizzi Chair in Development Economics. Vice-President, European Economic Association. Research Fellow of the Bureau for Research in Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), the Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research (IGIER) and the European Development Research Network (EUDN). Network Coordinator of Policy Design and Evaluation Research (PODER, EC FP7 ITN).
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