Ricardo Hausmann is the founder and Director of Harvard’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 grown into one of the most well regarded and influential hubs for research on economic growth and development globally.
His scholarly contributions have had a significant impact on the study and practice of economic growth and 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.
Since launching the Growth Lab in 2006, Hausmann has served as principal investigator for more than 50 research initiatives in over 30 countries, informing development policy, growth strategies and diversification agendas at the national and sub-national levels and in five continents.
Before joining Harvard University, he served as the first Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank (1994-2000), where he created the Research Department. He has served as Minister of Planning of Venezuela (1992-1993) and as a member of the Board of the Central Bank of Venezuela. He also served as Chair of the IMF-World Bank Development Committee. He was Professor of Economics at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administracion (IESA) (1985-1991) in Caracas, where he founded the Center for Public Policy. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University.
