Quick Facts
Biography
Stefan Dercon is the current chief economist of the UK Department for International Development (DfID). He is a Development Economist who has, since 2015, been Professor of Economic Policy at the Oxford University (at the Blavatnik School of Government and the Economics Department] and a Professorial Fellow of Jesus College. He is also the Director of the Centre for Study of African Economies at Oxford University. Previously he was Professor of Development Economics at Oxford University. Between 2000 and 2002 he was Programme Director at the World Institute of Development Economics (WIDER), United Nations University where he led their research programme on “Insurance against Poverty”. Prior to this between 1993 and 2000 he was a Tenured Professor of Development Economics at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Until he joined DFID, he was also the Lead Academic for the Ethiopia country programme at the International Growth Centre, which is a research centre based jointly at The London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Oxford.
Key themes
His research as focused on a range of subjects including:
- risk and poverty
- agriculture and rural institutions,
- political economy,
- childhood poverty,
- social and geographic mobility,
- micro-insurance, and
- measurement issues related to poverty and vulnerability.
The work has typically involved the collection and analysis of longitudinal data sets - in particular he worked on:
- an examination of rural households
- Ethiopia (ERHS)
- Tanzania (KHDS)
- India (new ICRISAT VLS)
- an examination of children in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam (The Young Lives project).
Noted works
- (2004) Insurance against Poverty, 2004, Oxford University Press (Edited volume)
- (2002) The Impact of Economic Reforms on Rural Households in Ethiopia, Washington D.C. World Bank.