Stephen Haber
Stephen Haber’s research focuses on the political institutions that “hold up” innovation and improvements in living standards. Currently he is examining three areas: 1) the economic and political consequences of differences in systems of agricultural production, 2) the comparative development of patent systems, and their implications for rates of technological change, and 3) the political origins of financial development and underdevelopment. On the first topic, he will examine how differences in the types of crops that grow in different natural environments affect the social organisation of production in that society, and how those differences in the organization of production shape societies’ fundamental political and economic institutions.
During his stay at CES, Mr Haber will offer a lecture series on the Political Economy of Development and Underdevelopment. This series addresses cutting edge issues in development, including the role of climate in a range of economic and political outcomes, the existence of a “resource curse”, and the political origins of unstable and inefficient banking systems.
Stephen Haber is the A. A. and Jeanne Welch Milligan Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is also Senior Fellow of both the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Stanford Center for International Development.