Finn Tarp
Finn Tarp is a Danish Professor of Development Economics at the University of Copenhagen and former Director of UNU-WIDER, Helsinki, Finland.
Biography
Professor Tarp has four decades of experience in academic and applied development economics research and teaching. His field experience covers more than two decades 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.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.
He has published more than 100 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 five books, 19 edited book volumes and special journal issues and 55 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 and the African Economic Research Consortium. From 2013 - 2016 he also served as 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, by Her Majesty the Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.
Selected publications
Journal Articles
Professor Finn Tarp is the author of more than 100 articles in internationally refereed journals, they include:- World Bank Economic Review, vol. 30, 2016, pp. 446–74. With A. Arndt and S. Jones.
- Journal of Economic Geography, vol. 16, 2016, pp. 1055–1078. With E. Howard and C. Newman.
- . Journal of Development Economics, vol. 118, 2016, pp. 266–81. With S. Jones.
- . European Economic Review, vol. 76, 2015, pp. 168– 87. With C. Newman, J. Rand and T. Talbot.
- . World Development, vol. 69, 2015, pp. 6–18. With C. Arndt and S. Jones.
- . Journal of Development Economics, vol. 110, 2014, pp. 291–302. With T. Markussen.
- . Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, vol. 76, 2014, pp. 153–84. With K. Juselius and N. F. Møller.
- . World Bank Economic Review, vol. 27, 2013, pp. 357–88. With C. Newman and J. Rand.
- . American Journal of Agricultural Economics, vol. 92, 2010, pp. 1136–48. With H. T. Jensen and S. Robinson.
- . European Economic Review, vol. 50, 2006, pp. 1843–62. With T. B. Andersen and T. Harr.
- ‘On the Empirics of Foreign Aid and Growth’. The Economic Journal, vol. 114, 2004, pp. F191-FF216. With C.-J. Dalgaard and H. Hansen.
- . Journal of Development Economics, vol. 64, 2001, pp. 547–70. With H. Hansen.
Books
- . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 384 pages. Editor with C. Arndt.
- . Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2016, 270 pages. Editor with H. Bhorat.
- . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 336 pages. Editor with C. Newman, J. Page, J. Rand, A. Shimeles and M. Söderbom.
- . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 466 pages. Editor with C. Arndt and A. McKay.
- . Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2016, 268 pages. With C. Newman, J. Page, J. Rand, A. Shimeles and M. Söderbom.
- Taxation in a Low-Income Economy: the Case of Mozambique. London and New York: Routledge, 2009, 383 pages. Editor with C. Arndt.
- Foreign Aid and Development: Lessons Learnt and Directions for the Future. London and New York: Routledge, 2000, 512 pages. Editor, assisted by P. Hjertholm.
- The South African Economy: Macroeconomic Prospects for the Medium Term. London and New York: Routledge, 1996, 219 pages. With P. Brixen.
- Stabilization and Structural Adjustment: Macroeconomic Frameworks for Analysing the Crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. London and New York: Routledge, 1993, 212 pages.
Working Papers
- . WIDER Working Paper 2016/122. With A. Kinyondo and C. Newman.
- . WIDER Working Paper 2016/108. With Dang Thi Thu Hoai, D. van Seventer and Ho Cong Hoa.
- . WIDER Working Paper 2016/90. With C. Newman and J. Rand.
- . WIDER Working Paper 2016/75. With C. Arndt, V. Leyaro and K. Mahrt.
- . WIDER Working Paper 2016/68. With C. Newman, J. Rand and N. Trifkovic.
- . WIDER Working Paper 2016/35. With C. Arndt, S. Jones, K. Mahrt and V. Salvucci.
- . WIDER Working Paper 2016/16. With U. Beck and S. Singhal.
- . WIDER Working Paper 2016/11. With T. Markussen, D. H. Thiep and N. D. Anh Tuan.
- . WIDER Working Paper 2016/8. With C. Arndt and K. Mahrt.
- . WIDER Working Paper 2016/7. With C. Newman, J. Rand and N. Trifkovic.
Book Chapters
- ‘Growth and Structural Transformation in Viet Nam during the 2000s’. Forthcoming in C. Monga and J. Lin Handbook of Structural Transformation. Oxford University Press. With Dang Thi Thu Hoai and D. van Seventer.
- ‘Growth and Poverty: A Pragmatic Assessment and Future Prospects’. Forthcoming as chapter 9 in C. S. Adam, P. Collier and B. Ndulu Tanzania: The Path to Prosperity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. With C. Arndt, V. Leyaro and K. Mahrt.
- ‘Mozambique: Jobs and Welfare in an Agrarian Economy’. Chapter 2 in G. Betcherman and M. Rama Jobs and Development: Comparative Challenges and Solutions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. With S. Jones.
- ‘Bribes and Taxes: Spatially Concentrated or Randomly Distributed? Evidence from Three Sources of Firm Level Data in Vietnam’. Chapter 10 in I. Scott and T. Gong Handbook on Corruption in Asia. London and New York: Routledge, 2016. With J. Rand.
- ‘Lessons for Japanese Foreign Aid from Research on Aid's Impact’. Chapter 18 in H. Kato, J. Page and Y. Shimomura Japan’s Development Assistance: Foreign Aid and the Post-2015 Agenda. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. With T. Addison.
- ‘Aid to Africa: The Changing Context’. Chapter 38 in J. Lin and C. Monga The Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Volume II: Policies and Practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. With T. Addison and S. Singhal.
- ‘Distributional Impacts of the 2008 Global Food Price Spike in Vietnam’. Chapter 16 in D. Sahn 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.
- ‘Aid Effectiveness’. Chapter 2 in M. Ndulu and N. van de Walle Problems, Promises, and Paradoxes of Aid: Africa’s Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014. With C. Arndt and S. Jones.
- ‘Aid and Growth in Africa’. Chapter 11 in A. Sumner and T. Kirk The Donors' Dilemma: Emergence and the Future of Foreign Aid. Global Policy, 2014. With T. Addison.
- ‘Access to Land: Market and Non-market Land Transactions in Rural Vietnam’. Chapter 7 in S. Holden, K. Otsuka, and K. Deininger Land Tenure Reforms in Asia and Africa: Assessing Impacts on Poverty and Natural Resource Management. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. With Luu Duc Khai, T. Markussen and S. McCoy.
Current Professional Activities
- Member of the Advisory Board of the , University of Bonn.
- Member of the Academic Advisory Council of the Institute of New Structural Economics, University of Peking.
- Member of the University of Copenhagen review panel under the .
- Member of the Board, Journal of Development Studies.
- Editor, Journal Sustainability Science.
- Resource person, African Economic Research Consortium, Nairobi, Kenya. Since 2015 chair of the thematic group one on poverty, inequality and food security.
- Invited Member, European Union Development Network.
- External Research Fellow, , School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
- Member, Editorial Board, Journal of International Development.
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.
- November 2011 - The Vietnamese Government Development Merit ‘Medal for the Cause of Science and Technology’.
- 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 based on the thesis Growth and Income Distribution in Developing Countries.