Stefan Dercon


Stefan Dercon, CMG, is a Belgian economist and a Professor of Economic Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and the Department of Economics at the University of Oxford. He is also the Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies. In 2011-2017, Dercon was the chief economist of the UK Department for International Development. Before DfID, Dercon was a Professor of Development Economics at Oxford University, and 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. Between 2000 and 2002 he was a Programme Director at the World Institute of Development Economics, 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.
He is a Fellow of BREAD, a Research Fellow of CEPR and of IZA, and an Affiliate of J-PAL. He studied economics and philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven and holds an MPhil and DPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford.
In 2018, the Queen awarded him as an honorary Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George for services to economics and international development.
His book, Dull Disasters? How Planning Ahead Will Make A Difference was published in 2016, and provides a blueprint for renewed application of science, improved decision making, better preparedness, and pre-arranged finance in the face of natural disasters.

Key themes

His research as focused on a range of subjects including:
Together with political economist Chris Blattman he ran a randomized controlled trial in Ethiopia that investigated the impact of low-skill industrial jobs on the welfare of the workers. The research was covered by Our World in Data and the Financial Times.