Yale Professor Named Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum

Yale economics professor Aleh Tsyvinski has been selected by The World Economic Forum to join the elite class of Young Global Leaders (YGL) 2009.

Yale economics professor Aleh Tsyvinski has been selected by The World Economic Forum to join the elite class of Young Global Leaders (YGL) 2009.

Tsyvinski was among 230 leaders from government, business, academia, non-profit organizations and the arts who were chosen for this honor.

His research centers on macroeconomics and public economics, with a special focus on public policy, taxation, and regulations of financial markets. He has published widely in all of the top economic journals: Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, and Econometrica, to name a few. He is also an Associate Editor of the Journal of Public Economics.

Tsyvinski, who holds a doctorate from the University of Minnesota, is at 31 one of the youngest tenured full professors at Yale. A native and citizen of Belarus, he says he is the first person from that country to be named a Young Global Leader. This fact is unrecorded, however, since he was considered as an American—his country of residency—by the nominating committee of the Forum.

“The competition is usually much stiffer for the Americans,” he notes, expressing disappointment that his native land did not achieve official recognition.

In addition to his full-time teaching position at Yale, he is a Co-Director of the Macroeconomic Research Program at Cowles Foundation at Yale and serves as a visiting scholar at a research and policy institute of the Central Bank of Italy, and the Federal Bank of Minneapolis.

He has received numerous awards including a five-year CAREER award from the National Science Foundation and a prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship given to the very best young professors in the U.S.A. and Canada.

Tsyvinski writes a bi-weekly column “Ratio Economica” for the editorial page of Vedomosti, a leading Russian daily (published in association withthe Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times), which he says gives him a chance to influence public opinion as a “pundit.”

Asked his opinion of the current efforts to rescue the failing economy, Tsyvinski is unequivocal in his disapproval: “We observe an unprecedented increase in government involvement in the economy,” he says. “Excessive government restraints prolong recessions,” he said, admitting that his is a “conservative” view.

Most prominently known for its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, the Forum engages the most influential leaders from a wide variety of fields to share their knowledge, expertise and inspired ideas to improve the world and “to shape global, regional and industry agendas.”

Every year the Forum chooses between 200 and 300 young leaders for their professional accomplishments and commitment to address “global challenges and … to collectively work towards a better future.”

Drawn from a pool of almost 5,000 candidates, the Young Global Leaders 2009 were chosen by a selection committee chaired by H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan.

The 2009 honorees will become part of the broader Forum of Young Global Leaders, of which there are 480 members. The YGLs convene at biannual summits, as well as Forum events and meetings throughout the year, and collaborate on initiatives to tackle some of the key challenges of our generation.

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Media Contact

Dorie Baker: dorie.baker@yale.edu, 203-432-1345