Leonard Wantchekon
Appointment
Advisor
Boundaries Membership & Belonging
About
Leonard Wantchekon is the James Madison Professor of Political Economy and Professor of Politics, international Affairs and Economics (Associate Faculty) at Princeton University. He previously was a faculty member at New York University and Yale University. He holds a PhD in Economics from Northwestern University and Masters in Economics from UBC and Laval University.
His research centers on political economy, development economics and economic history with regional focus on Africa and on substantive topics such as democracy and development. education and social mobility, and the long-term social impact of slavery and colonial rule.
His scholarship is shaped in part by his experiences as a left-wing pro-democracy student activist under a repressive military regime in his native Benin from 1976 to 1987. He reflects on this experience in his auto-biography “Rêver à contre-courant”, (Dreaming Against the Current), Harmattan (2012).
An academic entrepreneur, and advocate for research and higher education in Africa, Wantchékon founded the Institute for Empirical Research in Political Economy in 2004. The Institute’s success led to the founding of the African School of Economics, which offers top quality master’s programs. In the near future, ASE will be expanding geographically to regional campuses in Zanzibar (East Africa), Nigeria (West Africa) and programmatically with schools in the Arts and Sciences, in Business, in Public Administration, and in Engineering
Awards
- Global Economy Prize, Kiel Institute Germany, 2023
- Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), 2020
- Fellow, Econometric Society, 2018
- Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2013
Relevant Publications
- Critical Junctures: Independence Movements and Democracy in Africa (with Omar Garcia Ponce), American Journal of Political Science Forthcoming
- Political Uncertainty, and the Forms of State Capture (with Nathan Canen and Rafael Ch) Journal of Development Economics. Vol 180, January 2023, pp. 1-21
- Political Distortions, State Capture and Economic Development in Africa. (with Nathan Canen. Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol 36, No1, Winter 2022, pp-101-124
- “Policy Deliberation and Voter Persuasion: Experimental Evidence from the Philippines” (with G. Lopez Moctezuma, D. Rubenson, T Fujiwara, C. Lero) American Journal of Political Science, Oct, 2020
- "The Paradox of Warlord Democracy: A Theoretical Investigation", 2004, American Political Science Review, Vol. 98 (February), pp. 17-33.
- "Clientelism and Voting Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Benin", 2003, World Politics, Vol. 55, pp. 399-422.
- “Education and Human Capital Externalities: Evidence from Colonial Benin", 2015 with Natalija Notva and Marko Klansja), Quarterly Journal of Economics. 130: 703-757
- "The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa"(with Nathan Nunn). 2011. American Economic Review, 101(7), 3221-3252.