EDI researcher profiled in The Economist

A member of the research team behind EDI’s groundbreaking Benin Institutional Diagnostic has been profiled by The Economist.

Léonard Wantchekon co-authored the Diagnostic’s thematic study on campaign finance and state capture, which investigates the way that the nature of contractual arrangements between politicians, political brokers, and businessmen in Benin depends on the level of political competition.

The Economist’s profile explores Léonard’s ideas – including a widely cited paper on the long-term implications of the slave trade on levels of trust and commerce – and background, from his childhood in Benin and his time as a refugee, to founding the African School of Economics and a professorship at Princeton.

Subscribers to The Economist can read the article in full here.