International Conference on Economics, Law and Government (ELG 2026)
SYSTEMIC SUSTAINABILITY ANALYSIS AND POLICY DESIGN IN THE AGE OF MULTIPLE TRANSITIONS
James Madison Professor of Political Economy and Professor of Politics and International Affairs
Princeton University, USA
Leonard Wantchekon is the James Madison Professor of Political Economy and Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, with affiliations in Economics.
A leading scholar in political economy, economic history, and development economics, his work combines field experiments, historical analysis, and institutional studies.
Key contributions include:
Shaped by his experience as a pro-democracy student activist under Benin’s repressive military regime (1976–1987), recounted in his autobiography Rêver à Contre-Courant (2012).
He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society, and serves on the International Economic Association’s Executive Committee.
Founder and President of the African School of Economics (opened in Benin in 2014).
Previously taught at NYU and Yale; PhD in Economics from Northwestern University.
Associate Professor, Economics
The Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, USA
Serguei Maliar is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, where he has been since Fall 2013.
His main areas of expertise include macroeconomics, economic theory, game theory, numerical methods, transition economies, and economic growth and development.
He has published in top-tier journals such as Econometrica, Quantitative Economics, Review of Economic Dynamics, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, and Journal of Business and Economic Statistics. He also contributed a chapter to the Handbook of Computational Economics.
Professor Maliar currently advises the Bank of Canada on optimal monetary policy modeling. He serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control and received an NSF grant for 2016–2019.
Before joining Santa Clara, he was a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Stanford University and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He previously taught at the University of Alicante (where he was Director of Graduate Studies in Economics), Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and the University of Chicago ICE program.
His education includes:
Senior Fellow Researcher at Center for International Development’s Growth Lab
Havard Law School, USA
Dr. Ermal Frasheri received his S.J.D. from Harvard Law School, and is a fellow at the Center for International Development at Harvard Kennedy School. He teaches a course on Law and Corruption at Sturm College of Law.
During his doctoral studies at Harvard, Ermal worked in the areas of law and development, international law, social and political theories, and European integration. He has written papers on legal reform and comparative law, European Union, financial services, international law, and his dissertation, titled: “Of Knights and Squires: European Union and the Modernization of Albania,” examined the relationship between regional integration in the context of European integration and development strategies. His current research focuses on the modes of reproduction of hierarchies and inequalities in international law, migration, and law and economic development.
In addition to his research, Ermal has taught at Harvard University in various roles since 2006 in the fields of political philosophy and social theories, European integration and EU law, democracy, international institutions, corruption, and sociology. He was recipient of a teaching excellence award by Harvard (Certificate of Distinction in Teaching) and was appointed a Byse Fellow at Harvard Law School (fall 207) where he taught a series of workshops on Law and Development. He has also taught European Union Law at New England Law, Boston, International Law at Babson College, and International Trade Law at Sturm College of Law.
In June 2017, Dr. Frasheri was elected to the United Nations Committee on Migrant Workers, a treaty body that monitors implementation of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families by its State parties.
Prior to starting his graduate studies, LL.M. and S.J.D., at Harvard, Ermal was a Fulbright Scholar. He has worked on economic development and rule of law projects in Albania, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Thailand, among other places.
