Finn Tarp

Finn Tarp
Born	(1951-04-13) April 13, 1951
Nationality	Danish
Alma mater	University of Copenhagen
Occupation	Professor of Development Economics at the University of Copenhagen Director of UNU-WIDER
Website	www.econ.ku.dk/ftarp/ information at IDEAS / RePEc

Finn Tarp (1951–present) is a Danish Professor of Development Economics at the University of Copenhagen (where he completed his MSc and PhD) and Director of UNU-WIDER, Helsinki, Finland.^[1][2][3][4]

Biography

Professor Tarp has some 38 years of experience in academic and applied development economics research and teaching. His field experience covers some 20 years of in-country work in 35 countries across Africa and the developing world more generally, including longer-term assignments in Swaziland, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Vietnam.^[1]

Professor Tarp is a leading international expert on issues of development strategy and foreign aid, with an interest in poverty, income distribution and growth, micro- and macroeconomic policy and modeling, agricultural sector policy and planning, household and enterprise development, and economic adjustment and reform.^[1]

He has published 94 articles in international academic journals—including The Economic Journal, Journal of Development Economics, World Bank Economic Review, European Economic Review, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, World Development, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Land Economics, Review of Income and Wealth, Journal of Economic Geography, Feminist Economics, Economic Development and Cultural Change, and Climatic Change—alongside six books, 16 edited book volumes and special journal issues and more than 48 book chapters.

In addition to his university positions, Finn Tarp has held senior posts and advisory positions within government and with donor organizations, and he is member of a large number of international committees and advisory bodies. They include the European Union Development Network (EUDN) and the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC). He is also a member of the World Bank Chief Economist’s 15 member ‘Council of Eminent Persons’ advising the Chief Economist and he has been awarded the Vietnamese Government Medals of Honour for ‘Support to the Planning and Investment System’ and the ‘Cause of Science and Technology’ as well as a Knighthood, Order of the Dannebrog,^[5] by Her Majesty the Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.

Selected Publications

Journal Articles

Professor Finn Tarp is the author of more than 90 articles in internationally refereed journals, they include:

• ‘Does Foreign Aid Harm Political Institutions?’. Journal of Development Economics, vol. 118, 2016, pp. 266-81. With S. Jones.
• ‘What is the Aggregate Economic Rate of Return to Foreign Aid?’ Published online in World Bank Economic Review, 2015. With A. Arndt and S. Jones.
• ‘Technology Transfers, Foreign Investment and Productivity Spillovers’. European Economic Review, vol. 76, 2015, pp. 168- 87. With C. Newman, J. Rand and T. Talbot.
• ‘Assessing Foreign Aid's Long Run Contribution to Growth and Development’. World Development, vol. 69, 2015, pp. 6–18. With C. Arndt and S. Jones.
• ‘Political Connections and Land-related Investment in Rural Vietnam’. Journal of Development Economics, vol. 110, 2014, pp. 291–302. With T. Markussen.
• ‘The Long-Run Impact of Foreign Aid in 36 African Countries: Insights from Multivariate Time Series Analysis’. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, vol. 76(2), 2014, pp. 153-84. With K. Juselius and N. F. Møller.
• ‘Industry Switching in Developing Countries’. World Bank Economic Review, vol. 27(2), 2013, pp. 357–88. With C. Newman and J. Rand.
• ‘Measuring Agricultural Policy Bias: General Equilibrium Analysis of Fifteen Developing Countries’. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, vol. 92(4), 2010, pp. 1136–48. With H. T. Jensen and S. Robinson.
• ‘On US Politics and IMF Lending’. European Economic Review, vol. 50(7), 2006, pp. 1843–62. With T. B. Andersen and T. Harr.
• ‘On the Empirics of Foreign Aid and Growth’. The Economic Journal, vol. 114(496), 2004, pp. F191-FF216. With C.-J. Dalgaard and H. Hansen.
• ‘Aid and Growth Regressions’. Journal of Development Economics, vol. 64(2), 2001, pp. 547–70. With H. Hansen.

Books

He has published several books, which include:

• Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 466 pages. Editor with C. Arndt and A. McKay. ISBN 9780198744795
• Made in Africa: A New Industrial Strategy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2016, 268 pages. With C. Newman, J. Page, J. Rand, A. Shimeles and M. Söderbom. ISBN 9780815728153
• Taxation in a Low-Income Economy: the Case of Mozambique. London and New York: Routledge, 2009, 383 pages. Editor with C. Arndt. ISBN 978-0-415-74652-6
• Foreign Aid and Development: Lessons Learnt and Directions for the Future. London and New York: Routledge, 2000, 512 pages. Editor, assisted by P. Hjertholm. ISBN 978-0-415-23363-7
• The South African Economy: Macroeconomic Prospects for the Medium Term. London and New York: Routledge, 1996, 219 pages. With P. Brixen. ISBN 978-0415142601
• Stabilization and Structural Adjustment: Macroeconomic Frameworks for Analysing the Crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. London and New York: Routledge, 1993, 212 pages. ISBN 0415081807

Working Papers

Professor Tarp is the author of more than 120 Working Papers, among them:

• ‘Multidimensional Assessment of Child Welfare for Tanzania’. WIDER Working Paper 2016/75. With C. Arndt, V. Leyaro and K. Mahrt.
• ‘The Transmission of Socially Responsible Behaviour Through International Trade’. WIDER Working Paper 2016/68. With C. Newman, J. Rand and N. Trifkovic.
• ‘A Review of Consumption Poverty Estimation for Mozambique’. WIDER Working Paper 2016/35. With C. Arndt, S. Jones, K. Mahrt and V. Salvucci.
• ‘Coffee Price Volatility and Intra-Household Labour Supply’. WIDER Working Paper 2016/16. With U. Beck and S. Singhal.
• ‘Inter- and Intra-farm Land Fragmentation in Viet Nam’. WIDER Working Paper 2016/11. With T. Markussen, D. H. Thiep and N. D. Anh Tuan.
• ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in a Competitive Business Environment’. WIDER Working Paper 2016/7. With C. Newman, J. Rand and N. Trifkovic.
• ‘Understanding Mozambique's Growth Experience Through an Employment Lens’. WIDER Working Paper 2015/109. With S. Jones.
• ‘The Real Exchange Rate, Foreign Aid and Macroeconomic Transmission Mechanisms in Tanzania and Ghana’. University of Copenhagen. Institute of Economics. Discussion Papers, 2014(02). With K. Juselius and A. A. Reshisd.
• ‘The Happy Farmer: Self-employment and Subjective Well-being in Rural Vietnam’. WIDER Working Paper 2014/108. With T. Markussen, M. Fibaek, Nguyen Do Anh Tuan.
• ‘Exporting and Productivity: The Role of Ownership and Innovation in the Case of Vietnam’. WIDER Working Paper 2014/070. With C. Newman, J. Rand and T.T.A. Nguyen.
• ‘Learning by Exporting: The Case of Mozambican Manufacturing’. WIDER Working Paper 2014/066. With A. Cruz, C. Newman, and J. Rand.

Book Chapters

He has published more than 40 international refereed book chapters, including:

• ‘Lessons for Japanese Foreign Aid from Research on Aid's Impact’. Chapter 18 (pp. 295-309) in H. Kato, J. Page and Y. Shimomura (eds.) Japan’s Development Assistance: Foreign Aid and the Post-2015 Agenda. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. With T. Addison. ISBN 978-1-137-50538-5
• ‘Aid to Africa: The Changing Context’. Chapter 38 (pp. 698-710) in J. Lin and C. Monga (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Volume II: Policies and Practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. With T. Addison and S. Singhal. ISBN 9780199687107
• ‘Distributional Impacts of the 2008 Global Food Price Spike in Vietnam’. Chapter 16 (pp. 373-92) in D. Sahn (ed.) New Directions in the Fight Against Hunger and Malnutrition: The Role of Food, Agriculture, and Targeted Policies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. With A. McKay. ISBN 9780198733201
• ‘Aid Effectiveness’. Chapter 2 (pp. 16-37) in M. Ndulu and N. van de Walle (eds.) Problems, Promises, and Paradoxes of Aid: Africa’s Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014. With C. Arndt and S. Jones. ISBN 9781443867450
• ‘Access to Land: Market and Non-market Land Transactions in Rural Vietnam’. Chapter 7 (pp. 162–86) in S. Holden, K. Otsuka, and K. Deininger (eds.) Land Tenure Reforms in Asia and Africa: Assessing Impacts on Poverty and Natural Resource Management. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. With Luu Duc Khai, T. Markussen and S. McCoy. ISBN 9781137343802
• ‘Aid, Growth, and Development’. Chapter 2 (pp. 20–53) in G. Mavrotas (ed.) Foreign Aid for Development: Issues, Challenges and the New Agenda. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-19-958093-4
• ‘Aid and Development: The Mozambican Case’. Chapter 14 (pp. 235–88) in S. Lahiri (ed.) Frontiers of Economics and Globalization: Theory and Practice of Foreign Aid, Elsevier, 2007. With C. Arndt and S. Jones. ISBN 978-0444527653
• ‘Reconstruction, Reform and State Capacity in Guinea-Bissau’. Chapter 13 (pp. 206–27) in T. Addison (ed.) From Conflict to Recovery in Africa, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. With J. Kovsted. ISBN 978-0-19-926103-1
• ‘Aid Effectiveness Disputed’. Chapter 4 (pp. 103–28) in F. Tarp (ed.) Foreign aid and Development: Lessons Learnt and Directions for the Future. London and New York: Routledge, 2000, pp. 1–14. With H. Hansen. ISBN 9781280202469
• ‘Structural Adjustment and After: Which Way Forward?’ Chapter 18 (pp. 344–65) in E. Aryeetey, J. Harrigan and M. Nissanke (eds.) Economic Reforms in Ghana: The Miracle & the Mirage. London: James Currey, 2000. With E. Aryeetey. ISBN 0-86543-843-9

Current Professional Activities

• Member of the Council of Eminent Persons (CEP) advising the Chief Economist of the World Bank.
• Member of the Advisory Board, The Centre for Globalization and Development at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
• Member of the Board, Journal of Development Studies (JDS).
• Editor, Journal Sustainability Science (SUST).
• Member of the International Advisory Group, Trinity International Development Initiative, Dublin, Ireland.
• Resource person, African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Nairobi, Kenya. Since 2015 chair of the thematic group one on poverty, inequality and food security.
• Senior Associate, Mekong Economics Ltd., Vietnam.
• Invited Member, European Union Development Network (EUDN).
• External Research Fellow, Centre for Research in Economic Development and International Trade, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
• Member, Editorial Board, Journal of International Development (JID).

Special Honours

• November 2015 - Conferred a Knighthood, Order of the Dannebrog, by Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.
• January 2014 - The Vietnamese Government Medal of Honour for Support to the Planning and Investment System.^[6]
• November 2011 - The Vietnamese Government Development Merit ‘Medal for the Cause of Science and Technology’.^[7]
• August 1996 - The University of Copenhagen Institute of Economics’ Award for excellent and inspiring teaching.
• January 1979 - The Zeuthen award of the Danish Economic Society (Socialøkonomisk Samfund) based on the thesis Growth and Income Distribution in Developing Countries.

External links

• University of Copenhagen page on Finn Tarp
• UNU-WIDER profile page
• Finn Tarp CV
• RePEc page on Finn Tarp
• Finn Tarp's profile on Google Scholar

References