Michael Spence

Served as the Chairman of an Independent Commission on Growth in Developing Countries (2006-2010 – the life of the commission). He is Professor of Economics at the Stern School at NYU, Professor Emeritus of Management in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford and Professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Spence received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001, and the John Bates Clark Medal in 1982, for work on markets with asymmetrical information.

He is the author of the book, “The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World,” Ferrar, Straus and Giroux, May 2011. His current research and teaching focus mainly on growth patterns and policies in a wide range of developed and developing countries.

He served as dean of the Stanford Business School from 1990 to 1999. As dean, he oversaw the finances, organization, and educational policies of the school. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard from 1984-1990.

Spence is a Senior Advisor to Oak Hill Investment Management, and a consultant to PIMCO. He is the co-chair of the Advisory Board of the Asia Global Institute, based in Hong Kong. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University.

Spence writes monthly columns for Project Syndicate which are published globally.