World Bank Economist to Speak at Walton College

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Philip Keefer, a lead research economist in the World Bank Development Research Group, will make a presentation Thursday, Jan. 22, on the University of Arkansas campus. His talk, “Politics and Economic Development: Latin America and the World,” will be held in the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Enterprise Development Auditorium at 6 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

The talk is co-sponsored by the economics department in the Sam M. Walton College of Business and the Latin American studies program in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

Since receiving his doctorate in economics from Washington University at St. Louis, Mo., Keefer has worked continuously on the interaction of institutions, political economy and economic development. His research has included investigations of the impact of insecure property rights on economic growth; the effect of political credibility on the policy choices of governments; and the sources of political credibility in democracies and autocracies.

His research has appeared in journals that span economics and political science, ranging from the Quarterly Journal of Economics to the American Review of Political Science, and has been influenced by his work in a wide range of countries, including Bangladesh, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, México, Perú, Pakistan and the Philippines.