William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University and Co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute, which won the 2009 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge in Development Cooperation Award. He is the author of four books: Violent Saviors: The West’s Conquest of the Rest (November 2025), The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor (2014), The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (2006), which won the FA Hayek Award from the Manhattan Institute, and The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (2001). You will notice here that this bio covers only successes and not the far more numerous things he is terrible at doing.
He has published more than 70 peer-reviewed academic articles, and has written columns and reviews for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Review of Books, and Washington Post. He has served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Development Economics and as Director of the blog Aid Watch. He is a Research Associate of NBER. He was named by Research.Com as one of Best Scientists of 2023. He won the Julian L. Simon Memorial Award from the Competitive Enterprise Institute in 2021, the Adam Smith Award from the Association of Private Enterprise Education, 2013, not to mention the FA Hayek Award from CUNY in 2009. He received an Honorary Doctorate in 2017 from Bowling Green State University, which is his undergraduate alma mater. Foreign Policy Magazine named him among the Top 100 Global Public Intellectuals in 2008 and 2009, and Thomson Reuters listed him as one of Highly Cited Researchers of 2014. He is also the 11th most famous native of Bowling Green, Ohio.
He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2019. He is active in efforts to help other people with Parkinson’s, many of whom defy stereotypes by thriving, working, and having fun.