Dani Rodrik 2020 Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences

Born in Istanbul (Turkey) on 14th August 1957, Dani Rodrik obtained his Bachelor of Arts in 1979 from Harvard University and, two years later, a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, where he earned his PhD in Economics in 1985. He has been an assistant and associate professor of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, professor of Economics and International Affairs at Columbia University, Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy, also at Harvard, and Albert O. Hirschman Professor of Economics at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Science. He currently holds the Ford Foundation Chair in International Political Economy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Considered one of the world’s leading experts in political economy, throughout his career he has published more than twenty books, monographs and numerous articles on economic growth and analysis, development and politics, as well as having lectured at prestigious universities and institutions worldwide. In his book The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy (2011), he formulated one of his most popular theses: the trilemma of international politics. According to this thesis, it is not possible for a country to combine its integration into the global economy, democracy and state sovereignty at the same time; given the situation of the system, it must renounce one of the three options. Since its formulation, the trilemma has become one of the most referenced ideas in the international debate on economic theory. He has focused part of his work on cooperation as co-director of Economics for Inclusive Prosperity (EfIP), a network of economists committed to achieving a fairer financial system and a more equitable society. He also forms part of the Bureau for Research in Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), a non-governmental organization that provides economic education in developing areas. He is co-editor of the Journal of Globalization and Development and sits on the editorial board of the journal Studies in Comparative International Development and the advisory board of the Review of Economics and Statistics, published by Harvard University, in addition to being a member of the editorial board of the academic journal Global Policy, published by Durham University. He is also a member of the executive committee of Harvard’s Weatherhead for International Affairs.

Rodrik is an emeritus member of the European Economic Association, an honorary member of the Economic Association of Latin America and the Caribbean and president-elect of the International Economic Association. He is a fellow of the United States National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London, the South African Presidential Economic Advisory Council, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Turkish Academy of Science and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in addition to holding many other positions and memberships. Holder of honorary doctorates from the Universities of Antwerp, Groningen, Southern Denmark, York and Lyon, as well as from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Rodrik has received the Leontief Prize from the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University (2002), the Albert O. Hirschman Prize from the Research Council in Social Sciences (USA, 2007), the John Fayerweather Eminent Scholar Award from the Academy of International Business (USA, 2017), the John von Neumann Award from the Rajk László College of Advanced Studies, Budapest (2018) and the George S. Eccles Prize for Excellence in Economic Writing from the Columbia Business School (2019), among others.