Profile: Jeffrey D. Sachs
Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, a Professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia University, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was formerly Director of the Center for International Development (CID) and Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), and the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade at Harvard University. In January 2002 Prof. Sachs was appointed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as his Special Advisor on the Millennium Development Goals. During 2000-2001, he was Chairman of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health of the World Health Organization, and from September 1999 through March 2000 he served as a member of the International Financial Institutions Advisory Commission established by the U.S. Congress. Prof. Sachs serves as an economic advisor to governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Former Soviet Union, Asia and Africa. He also serves as Co-Chairman of the Advisory Board of The Global Competitiveness Report , and has been a consultant to the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD, and the United Nations Development Program. In February 2002 Nature Medicine stated that Prof. Sachs "has revitalized public health thinking since he brought his financial mind to it." He was cited in The New York Times Magazine as "probably the most important economist in the world" and in the December 1994 Time Magazine issue on 50 promising young leaders as "the world's best-known economist." In 1997, the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur named Prof. Sachs as one of the world's 50 most important leaders on globalization. His syndicated newspaper column appears in more than 50 countries around the world, and he is a frequent contributor to major publications such as the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, and the Economist Magazine.
Prof. Sachs' research interests include the links of health and development, economic geography, globalization, transition to market economies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, international financial markets, international macroeconomic policy coordination, emerging markets, economic development and growth, global competitiveness, and macroeconomic policies in developing and developed countries. In 1987 and 1988, Prof. Sachs directed a large-scale research project at the NBER on the international debt crisis, which is published under his editorship in a four-volume series, Developing Country Debt and the Economic Performance , University of Chicago Press, 1989. From 1990-92 he directed a project on economic reform in the Soviet Republics and in Eastern Europe for the United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER), in Helsinki, Finland. He is now directing a major research program on global public health and economic development as Chairman of the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health.
Prof. Sachs has published more than two hundred scholarly articles, and has authored or edited many books. His textbook on Macroeconomics in the Global Economy , co-authored with Felipe Larrain, was first published in 1993, and has appeared in German, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese. His account of Poland's reforms, Poland's Jump to the Market Economy , was published in Fall 1993 by MIT Press. In 1994, the two volumes on The Transition in Eastern Europe , co-edited with Olivier Blanchard and Kenneth Froot, were published by the National Bureau of Economic Research and The University of Chicago Press. In 1995, Prof. Sachs published, with the BBC, a Russian-language book on Russia and the Market Economy . The John M. Olin Critical Issues Series on The Rule of Law and Economic Reform in Russia , which Prof. Sachs co-edited with Katharina Pistor, was published in Spring 1997 by Westview Press.
Prof. Sachs and his colleagues at HIID and CID have helped to produce several important global studies. Since 1996 he has led a team of economists in annually preparing The Global Competitiveness Report , in 1998 The Asian Competitiveness Report , and in 1998 and 2000, The African Competitiveness Report , with the World Economic Forum. Along with David Bloom, he coordinated a large research project culminating in the publication of Emerging Asia: Changes and Challenges by the Asian Development Bank in May 1997. In February 1997, Prof. Sachs and other experts at HIID prepared a proposal for "A New Partnership for Growth in Africa," which has contributed to the reformulation of U.S. foreign assistance policies with regard to Africa.
Prof. Sachs received his B.A., summa cum laude , from Harvard College in 1976, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1978 and 1980 respectively. He joined the Harvard faculty as an Assistant Professor in 1980, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1982 and Full Professor in 1983. Prof. Sachs joined Columbia University in July, 2002.
