Professor, Public Policy
Dr. Kugler is Professor of Public Policy at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, with research expertise on the role of new technologies in boosting economic growth and labor productivity (aka endogenous growth theory). His work encompasses analyses of productivity growth, global labor markets, foreign direct investment, global value chains, human capital formation, international trade, and international migration.
Kugler was Head of Research of the Human Development Report, the UN’s annual flagship publication on international economic development after he was Senior Economist at the World Bank. Prior, he was Visiting Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government and Research Fellow at the Growth Lab of the Center for International Development, both in Harvard University (2006-2010). His research has been widely published in top economics academic journals, including the American Economic Review, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Economics Letters, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Public Economics, Review of Economic Dynamics, Review of Economics and Statistics and Review of Economic Studies.
This work has been recognized in awards (McTaggart at LSE and AEA/FRB at UC Berkeley), grants (NSF, MacArthur Foundation and UK Economics and Social Sciences Research Council) and prizes (Global Development Forum and Latin American and Caribbean Economics Association). Kugler has been consultant for the World Bank Group (both through the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Finance Corporation) and the Inter-American Development Bank as well as Principal Investigator for the U.S. Department of Labor. He earned a Ph.D. in economics at UC Berkeley, under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Paul M. Romer, after getting B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in economics at the LSE.