Andrés Velasco

Dean, School of Public Policy, London School of Economics; Research Fellow, Centre for Economic Policy Research

Andrés Velasco is Professor of Public Policy and Dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

He is also an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).

In 2023-24 he served on the Task Force on Fiscal Policy for Health. In 2021-23 he was part of the High-Level Advisory Group (HLAG) to the IMF and the World Bank. In 2017-18 he was a member of the G20 Eminent Persons Group. During 2015-16 he co-chaired the Global Panel on the Future of the Multilateral Lending Institutions. In 2013-16 he was a member of the Global Oceans Commission.

Professor Velasco was a presidential candidate in Chile in 2013. He also was the Minister of Finance of Chile between 2006 and 2010. During his tenure he was recognized as Latin American Finance Minister of the Year by several international publications. His work to save Chile´s copper windfall and create a rainy-day fund was highlighted in the Financial Times, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, among many others.

In 2013-17 he served as Professor of Professional Practice in International Development at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. In 2000-06 he was Sumitomo-FASID Professor of International Finance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School. Earlier he was Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University.

Professor Velasco has published a dozen books and 50 academic articles. His research has appeared in top academic journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Economic Theory, the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of International Economics, and the Journal of Development Economics.

In 2006 he received the Inter-American Development Bank Award for Excellence in Economic Research.

He holds a B.A. in Economics and Philosophy and an M.A. in International Relations from Yale University. He also holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Political Economy at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He is married to Consuelo Saavedra, a journalist and television anchorwoman. They have three children: Rosa, Ema and Gaspar.