Jere Behrman

University of Pennsylvania Department of Economics

Professor Jere Behrman is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.  He is also a Research Associate at Penn’s Population Studies Center and he serves as the Economics/Social Science member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) National Advisory Council. He is a leading international researcher in empirical microeconomics, with emphasis on developing economies.  His research interests include empirical microeconomics, labor economics, human resources (early childhood development, education, health, nutrition), project evaluation, economic demography, incentive systems and household behaviors. The unifying dimension of much of this research is to improve empirical knowledge of the determinants of and the impacts of human resources given unobserved factors such as innate health and ability, the functioning of various institutions such as households and imperfect markets, and information imperfections.

He has published over 350 professional articles (primarily in leading general and field economic journals, also in leading demographic, sociology, nutritional and biomedical journals) and thirty-three books.  He has been a researcher with the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, United Nations Development Program, other international organizations and various governments.