Dr. Ricardo Hausmann (born 1956) is the Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is the founder and director of the Growth Lab, dedicated to do fundamental and applied research on growth, productive transformation and social inclusion and help countries, regions and cities with their development strategies. He is also a former Venezuelan Minister of Planning of Venezuela and a former Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank where he founded the Research Department. He co-introduced several regularly used concepts in economics including original sin, growth diagnostics, self-discovery, dark matter, the product space, and economic complexity.
His work has been published in some of the top journals in the world, including Science, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of International Economics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of International Money and Finance, Economic Policy, and the Journal of Economic Growth, among many others. These publications have been cited more than 42,000 times, and their main findings have been highlighted in mass media outlets such as The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Since launching the Growth Lab in 2006, Hausmann has served as principal investigator for more than 50 research initiatives in nearly 30 countries, informing development policy, growth strategies, and diversification agendas at the national and sub-national levels.