The African School of Economics is proud to share that our Founder and President, Professor Leonard Wantchekon, has been appointed this year’s Centenary Visiting Professor in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at the University of Oxford.
Professor Wantchekon is the James Madison Professor of Political Economy and Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. He received his PhD in Economics from Northwestern University in 1995 and has previously held faculty positions at Yale and New York University.
His research centres on political economy, development economics and economic history, with a regional focus on Africa and a methodological focus on experimentation. His substantive topics include democracy and development, education and social mobility, and the long-term social impact of slavery and colonial rule.
Alongside his role at Princeton, he is the Founder and President of the African School of Economics and the Pan African Scientific Research Council.
Professor Wantchekon won the 2023 Global Economy Prize, awarded by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Econometric Society, and has served as Vice President of the American Political Science Association. He is also a member of the United Nations High-Level Expert Group on “Beyond GDP”.
The Centenary Visiting Professorship was established to mark the 100th anniversary of the PPE degree at Oxford, made possible by an anonymous gift from an Old Member of The Queen’s College and a friend of University College. It rotates between Queen’s and University College and among the three disciplines that make up PPE, bringing leading international scholars to Oxford to encourage new thinking and exchange across disciplinary boundaries.
He follows previous Centenary Visiting Professors Mathias Thoenig of the University of Lausanne and Christina L. Davis of Harvard University.
Adapted from the University of Oxford Department of Economics. Read the original here.
