Bill Easterly & Laura Freschi: One Block's History

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 three books: The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor (March 2014), The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Harm 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).

He has also published more than 60 peer-reviewed academic articles, and ranks among the top 100 most cited economists worldwide. He 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, senior fellow at BREAD, and nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings. Foreign Policy Magazine named him among the Top 100 Global Public Intellectuals in 2008 and 2009. He is also the 11th most famous native of Bowling Green, Ohio.

Laura Freschi joined New York University’s Development Research Institute (DRI) in November 2008. Her work at DRI has included co-writing the Aid Watch blog with development economist William Easterly and managing research initiatives, programs and events; she is currently at work on an economic development history of one New York City block. She has been published in major print and online publications including the New York Times, Forbes, the New York Review of Books, The Lancet, and Alliance Magazine, and cited in many others. Prior to joining DRI, Laura received her MA in international affairs with a concentration in international development and economics from the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS). She has worked with a USAID contractor on education reform in Iraq and on international educational exchange programs with students from the Middle East. She has lived in Syria, Morocco, Italy and Bulgaria. Laura graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University with a degree in comparative literature. She is concurrently the Deputy Managing Director for the Financial Access Initiative at NYU Wagner.