Professor | Willis H. Booth Chair in Banking and Finance
Economic Analysis and Policy
Expert on how finance shapes the economy
About
Ross Levine is the Willis H. Booth Chair in Banking and Finance at Berkeley Haas. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Milken Institute, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He completed his undergraduate studies at Cornell University earned his PhD in economics from UCLA. He worked at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the World Bank, where he conducted and managed research and operational programs. His research is focused in two areas: how financial regulations and the operation of financial systems shape economic growth, entrepreneurship, and economic prosperity more generally; and the cognitive and non-cognitive traits of entrepreneurs. His two most recent books, “Rethinking Bank Regulation: Till Angels Govern” and “Guardians of Finance: Making Regulators Work for Us,” stress that regulatory policies often stymie competition and encourage excessive risk-taking, with deleterious effects on living standards. Levine advises governments, central banks, regulatory agencies, and multilateral organizations.
Expertise and Research Interests
- Economic Growth and Development
- Entrepreneurship
- Financial Regulation
- Ross Levine, Liangliang Jiang and Chen Lin. Competition and Bank Liquidity Creation. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.
Forthcoming - Ross Levine and Dean Corbae. Competition, Stability, and Efficiency in Financial Markets. Jackson Hole Symposium: Changing market Structure and Implications for Monetary Policy.
2018 - Ross Levine, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt. Financial Development and Innovation-Led Growth. Handbook of Finance and Development.
2018 - Ross Levine, Thorsten Beck. Introduction. Handbook of Finance and Development.
2018 - Ross Levine. Finance, Growth, and Economic Prosperity. Macroeconomic Review.
2018 - Ross Levine, Chen Lin, and Lai Wei. Insider Trading and Innovation. Journal of Law and Economics.
2017 - Ross Levine and Yona Rubinstein. Smart and Illicit: Who Becomes an Entrepreneur and Do They Earn More?. Quarterly Journal of Economics.
2017 - Ross Levine, Liangliang Jiang, and Chen Lin. Competition and Bank Opacity. Review of Financial Studies.
2016 - Ross Levine, Martin Goetz, and Luc Laeven. Does the Geographic Expansion of Banks Reduce Risk?. Journal of Financial Economics.
2016 - Ross Levin, Chen Lin, and Wensi Xie. Spare Tire? Stock Markets, Banking Crises, and Economic Recoveries. Journal of Financial Economics.
2016 - Ross Levine and William Easterly. The European Origins of Economic Development. Journal of Economic Growth.
2016 - Martin R. Goetz, Luc Laeven and Ross Levine. Identifying the Valuation Effects and Agency Costs of Corporate Diversification. The Review of Financial Studies.
2013 - James Barth, Gerard Caprio and Ross Levine. Guardians of Finance: Making Regulators Work for Us. MIT Press.
2012 - Thorsten Beck, Ross Levine and Alexey Levkov. Big Bad Banks: The Winners and Losers from Bank Deregulation in the United States. The Journal of Finance.
2010 - Bank Governance, Regulation, and Risk Taking. Journal of Financial Economics.
2009 - Ross Levine, James Barth, and Gerard Capri. Rethinking Bank Regulation: Till Angles Govern. Cambridge University Press.
2006 - Ross Levine and William Easterly. Tropics, Germs, and Crops: How Endowments Influence Economic Development. Journal of MonetaryEconomics.
2003 - Ross Levine and Sara Zervos. Stock Markets, Banks, and Growth. American Economic Review.
1998 - Ross Levine and William Easterly. Africa’s Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions. Quarterly Journal of Economics.
1997 - Ross Levine. Financial Development and Economic Growth: Views and Agenda. Journal of Economic Literature.
1997 - Ross Levine and Robert G. King. Finance and Growth: Schumpeter Might be Right. Quarterly Journal of Economics.
1993 - Ross Levine. A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions. American Economic Review.
1992
- Current Research Interests
– Financial regulation and economic growth, income inequality, and poverty
– The political economy of financial regulation
– Entrepreneurship
At Haas since 2012
2012 – present, Willis H. Booth Chair in Banking and Finance, Haas School of Business
2007 – 2012, Director, William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance, Brown University
2005 – 2012, James and Merryl Tisch Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Brown University
1999 – 2006, Curtis L. Carlson Professor of Finance, Department of Finance, University of Minnesota
1999, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Virginia
1997 – 1999, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Virginia
1990 – 1997, Principal Economist, World Bank
1987 – 1990, Economist, Division of International Finance, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
- Senior Fellow, Milken Institute
- Member, Council on Foreign Relations
- Member, Advisory Scientific Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board
- Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research
- Steering Committee, Hoover Working Group on “Intellectual Property, Innovation, and Prosperity”
- Editorial Board Member (present and past): Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Economic Growth
- News focus with Ross Levine: US Fed’s interest rate cut and implications for the global economy, eFM This Morning (South Korea), 08/05/2019
- RBNZ appoints three independent experts to review bank capital proposals, New Zealand Herald, 05/29/2019
- Macroeconomics in the Global Economy, BA 201B