He is the Class of 1941 Professor of Economics, and past Chair of the Economics Department. He is currently on leave from MIT, as Economic Counsellor and Director of the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund.

He is a macroeconomist, who has worked on a wide set of issues, from the role of monetary policy, to the nature of speculative bubbles, to the nature of the labor market and the determinants of unemployment, to transition in former communist countries. In the process, he has worked with numerous countries and international organizations. He is the author of many books and articles, including two textbooks in macroeconomics, one at the graduate level with Stanley Fischer, one at the undergraduate level.

He is a fellow and Council member of the Econometric Society, a past vice president of the American Economic Association, and a member of the American Academy of Sciences.

Ricardo has published widely in leading economic journals including Science, the Journal of Development Economics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of International Money and Finance, Journal of Economic Growth, and Science and is regularly featured in media outlets such as The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Forbes Magazine. Professor Hausmann has advised governments in over 80 developing countries on creating effective growth strategies and development policies.

As Director of CID he guides the Center’s focus on solving global challenges with breakthrough research at the cutting edge of the hard sciences, social sciences, ethics and politics. Under Professor Hausmann’s leadership, CID’s Growth Lab has developed innovative theories and their practical applications. For example, Growth Diagnostics are being implemented by multilateral organizations throughout the world. Recently, his research team published The Network Structure of Economic Output and the Atlas of Economic Complexity: Mapping Paths to Prosperity, a new theory to that predicts countries’ growth potential measuring their productive capabilities and know-how. His new Economic Complexity Indicators are 10 times more accurate in predicting growth than any other development index in use today.

Previously, Ricardo served as the first Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank (1994-2000), where he created its Research Department. He 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 holds a degree in physics and a PhD in economics from Cornell University.

Professor Katz also has been studying the impacts of neighborhood poverty on low-income families as the principal investigator of the long-term evaluation of the Moving to Opportunity program, a randomized housing mobility experiment. Professor Katz is working with Claudia Goldin on a long-term project studying the historical evolution of career and family choices and outcomes for U.S. college men and women. His past research has explored a wide range of topics including the U.S. and comparative wage inequality trends, the impact of globalization and technological change on the labor market, the economics of immigration, unemployment, regional labor markets, the evaluation of labor market programs, the problems of low-income neighborhoods, for-profit higher education, and the social and economic consequences of the birth control pill.

Professor Katz has been editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics since 1991 and served as the Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of Labor for 1993 and 1994. He has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Academy of Political and Social Science, Econometric Society, and Society of Labor Economists. Katz graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1981 and earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985.

She is also a Research Fellow of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in London, the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) in London, and the Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University. She serves on the Editorial Boards of the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Labour Economics, and Economia.

Dr. Kugler has published widely in leading economics journals about the impact of public policies on employment and earnings. She has also written on the topic of immigration and its impacts on both receiving and sending countries. Her work has been covered in both print and television media, and her work has been featured in leading world economic reports.

Dr. Kugler was the 2007 recipient of the John T. Dunlop Outstanding Scholar Award from the Labor and Employment Relations Association, in recognition of her research contributions to the field of labor and industrial relations.

Dr. Kugler earned a B.A. in economics and political science with First Class Honors from McGill University and her Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

His previous assignments include a one-year spell with the Chief Economist office in South Asia region of the World Bank. His main task in this position was to strengthen the management of the analytical program of the region. From July to December 2010 he served as the acting regional Chief Economist.

Over the previous eight years Martin Rama was the Lead Economist for Vietnam. In this capacity, he oversaw the analytical program of the World Bank in areas related to economic policy and poverty reduction. His tasks included the preparation of the annual Vietnam Development Reports. He was also the focal person in the policy dialogue with government in relation to economic reforms, and led a series of annual policy lending operations co-financed by a dozen donors. During this eight-year period, Vietnam went from HIPC graduation to IBRD borrowing, while delivering a strong performance in terms of economic growth, job creation and social inclusion.

Between 2007 and 2009, in addition to his Lead Economist role, he served as the acting Country Director for the World Bank in Vietnam.

Prior to moving to operations, Martin Rama spent ten years with the research department of the World Bank, mainly stationed in Washington DC, but providing cross-support to a large number of developing countries. The main focus of his work was on labor issues. He co-managed a large research program on the impact of labor market policies and institutions on economic performance. He was also responsible for a major research initiative on public sector downsizing and served as a member of the Social Protection Board of the World Bank. His research activities led to numerous publications in academic journals.

Martin Rama gained his Ph.D. in macroeconomics in France in 1985. Back to his home country Uruguay, he worked in CINVE, the country’s largest think tank, and became one of its directors. In parallel with his World Bank duties, he was visiting professor in development economics at the University of Paris until 2005.