Contributor : Profile

Jean-Paul Faguet is Professor of the Political Economy of Development at the London School of Economics. He is also Chair of the Decentralization Task Force at Columbia University’s Initiative for Policy Dialogue. He works at the frontier between economics and political science, using quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the institutions and organisational forms that underpin development transformations. He has published in the economics, political science, and development literatures, including Is Decentralization Good for Development? Perspectives from Academics and Policymakers (Oxford, 2015), and Governance from Below: Decentralization and Popular Democracy in Bolivia (Michigan), which won the W.J.M. Mackenzie Prize for best political science book of 2012.

His current work focuses on historical institutions, inequality and long-term, divergent development outcomes in Colombia and Latin America. More broadly, his fields include political economy, comparative politics, institutional economics, economic development and economic history. Before coming to the LSE he worked for the World Bank in La Paz, Bolivia on health, education, early childhood development and the environment.