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June 27, 2013

Goodbye Harvard, hello Institute for Advanced Study

So big changes ahead for me. This is my last week at Harvard, as I am moving to the Institute for Advanced Study as the Albert O. Hirschman professor in the School of Social Science.  Here is the Institute’s official announcement.  My new home page is here, although it is barely under construction at the moment. (The Institute is located in Princeton, N.J, but no, it is not part of or affiliated with Princeton University.)

Counting my undergraduate years, I have spent a total of 27 years at Harvard -- an inordinately long time. Harvard has been incredibly good to me, even though I never quite felt an insider. 

For all its craziness, the Kennedy School was a perfect home, allowing me to connect economics to the other social sciences, and scholarship to the world of practice. The School has what any researcher can only dream of – a most wonderful group of colleagues, and a supportive administration. Its access and connections worldwide are unparalleled: all you have to do is sit in your office, and the world comes to you. 

I was blessed on top with great students: The MPAID, in particular, is as close to a perfect training program for development practitioners as I can imagine. I am amazed by the quality of the students we are able to attract to the program year after year.  And I haven't mentioned the rest of Harvard yet...

So why leave?

If someone had told me as recently as six months ago that I would be leaving, I would laugh it off.  But when the Institute came knocking, it was time for reflection. In the end, it wasn’t simply the honor of assuming a chair named after Albert Hirschman and filled previously by a scholar no less distinguished than Eric Maskin – though the honor is great indeed.  It wasn’t just the singular privilege of having no responsibilities other than research – no teaching, practically no administrative duties – though that privilege is enormous too.  It was the thought that moving to the IAS would free me up for a new, if, at the moment, quite unpredictable intellectual journey.

I imagined remaining at Harvard.  I could predict more or less what I would be doing five years from now if I stayed – the kind of papers I would be writing, the courses I would be teaching, the meetings I would be attending, the debates, intellectual or otherwise, I would be having.

A research career can serve both as scaffolding and as trap. My views on globalization and development have evolved – and, I’d like to think, become more sophisticated – as my work on these topics accumulated. But sometimes I do get the feeling that I am repeating rather than renewing myself – that I am chewing over the same material over and over again.

The IAS opens for me a new page. It removes any conceivable excuse for becoming stale. I don’t imagine I will stop working on my usual topics. But my intellectual trajectory is now infused with an added element of uncertainty and flux. And this excites me more than anything else in my research career for quite some time.

Posted at 08:49 AM |

Comments

Josh Greenstein

Congratulations- I look forward to seeing where your new focus on research takes you.

Posted by: Josh Greenstein | June 27, 2013 at 10:11 AM

Timothy_phan

Good luck Professor, Princeton will be lucky to have you.

Posted by: Timothy_phan | June 27, 2013 at 12:03 PM

Ben Khuat

Thank you so much professor. I enjoyed your lectures a lot in the last two semesters although I was not a talking person in the session.

Good luck with everything you are doing and will do in the future.

Best of the best.
Anh Khuat (MPAID14)

Posted by: Ben Khuat | June 28, 2013 at 12:39 PM

Econ_Vzla

Very sad news for future generations of MPAIDs, but very exciting news for you and your future stream of research. Kudos, I wish you the best of lucks.

Posted by: Econ_Vzla | July 01, 2013 at 03:17 PM

Sylvana Q. Sinha

Professor Rodrik, Harvard and the MPAID will surely not be the same without you. Aren't you the one who taught us that institutions matter?!?!

Still, your new venture sounds very exciting and I am sure the MPAID will recover, though not easily, from your absence. All the best! I am based in NYC and hope our paths might cross some time!

Posted by: Sylvana Q. Sinha | July 01, 2013 at 04:03 PM

Ravenswingthog

Many congratulations Professor. This sounds like a wonderful and exciting opportunity. All the best.

Posted by: Ravenswingthog | July 23, 2013 at 03:33 PM

Faustogurrea

I am truly honored to have had the precious fortune to have been in your development course at Harvard.

I am positive that people around the world will benefit from your future rigorous research in this new adventure.

Best wishes, Fausto (MPAID 08)

Posted by: Faustogurrea | August 19, 2013 at 04:03 PM

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