The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people in Economics,
#3401
Tom Courchene
#93707
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Thomas Joseph Courchene , known as Tom Courchene, is a Canadian economist and professor. Born in Wakaw, Saskatchewan, in 1940, he received an Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Saskatchewan in 1962. He received his PhD from Princeton University in 1967. In 1969, he received a post-doctoral fellowship from the University of Chicago. He started teaching as a lecturer in economics at the University of Western Ontario in 1965. In 1970, he became a Professor of Economics and he taught there until 1988. From 1988 to 1992, he was the Director of the School of Policy Studies at Queen's University.
Go to Profile#3402
R. Mark Isaac
#78283
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Robert Mark Isaac is an American academic who uses experimental economics to address basic microeconomic problems. His work has provided new empirical insights for many traditional economic problems, particularly cooperation and collective action problems.
Go to Profile#3403
Richard C. Cornes
#157874
Overall Influence
#3404
Evert Nieboer
#157882
Overall Influence
#3405
Awudu Abdulai
#128931
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Awudu Abdulai is a Ghanaian agricultural and development economist, and professor at the Institute of Food Economics and Consumption Studies, University of Kiel, Germany. His research and teaching focus on issues related to poverty alleviation, food and nutrition security, consumer behavior, and sustainable agriculture.
Go to Profile#3406
Wolfgang G. Bessler
#157897
Overall Influence
#3407
John Duignan
#70299
Overall Influence
1946 - 2019 (73 years)
John Duignan was a Scottish economist and writer. Duignan was born in Barrhead, Scotland, in a family of eight children. He left school, St Mirin's Academy in Paisley, at age 15 and worked in a blacksmith's workshop, then served an engineering apprenticeship. He worked in both the engineering and construction industries before going to university, where he read Economics and Economic History.
Go to Profile#3408
Sylvie Brunel
#93690
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Sylvie Brunel is a French economist and geographer, best known for her work for Action Against Hunger from 1989 to 2002, and her various publications in Que sais-je?. She was awarded the Legion of Honour in 2002.
Go to Profile#3409
Daniel Friedman
#158002
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
#3410
J. Lawrence Katz
#158008
Overall Influence
#3411
Mordechai E. Kreinin
#136543
Overall Influence
1930 - 2018 (88 years)
Mordechai Eliahu "Max" Kreinin was an Israeli-born American economist who was University Distinguished Professor of Economics at Michigan State until 2014. He was born in Rishon LeZion to parents Avraham and Joheved Kreinin. He attended Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium, received a bachelor's degree from the University of Tel Aviv, and earned a doctorate in economics from University of Michigan. He began teaching at Michigan State University in 1957. Over the course of his career, Kreinin helped develop the Finger-Kreinin index to measure the similarity of exports between nations and served as presid...
Go to Profile#3412
Karen Davis
#120467
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Karen Davis is president of The Commonwealth Fund, a national philanthropy engaged in independent research on health and social policy issues. Davis is an economist, with a career in public policy and research. Before joining The Commonwealth Fund, she served as chairman of the Department of Health Policy and Management at The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, where she also held an appointment as professor of economics. She served as deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Department of Health and Human Services from 1977–1980, becoming the first woman to head a U.S. public ...
Go to Profile#3413
Liviu Voinea
#107031
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Liviu Voinea is a professor of International Economics and Macroeconomics at the Academy of Economic Studies since 2013. Between august 2019 and august 2023 he was Romania's representative to the International Monetary Fund and Senior Advisor to the IMF Executive Director. In this capacity he was a member of the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund. He also represented Montenegro to the IMF.
Go to Profile#3414
Donald Keim
#93083
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Donald B. Keim is an American economist, the John Neff Professor Emeritus of Finance and former Director of the R.L. White Center for Financial Research at Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#3415
Hoyt Bleakley
#130535
Overall Influence
Hoyt Bleakley is an economist who currently works as an associate professor at the University of Michigan. His research has focused on economic history, development economics, labour economics, health economics, and international macroeconomics.
Go to Profile#3416
John McCallum
#89031
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
John McCallum is a Canadian politician, economist, diplomat and former university professor. A former Liberal Member of Parliament , McCallum was the Canadian Ambassador to China from 2017 to 2019. He was asked for his resignation by Prime Minister Trudeau in 2019. As an MP, he represented the electoral district of Markham—Thornhill, and had previously represented Markham—Unionville and Markham. He is a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.
Go to Profile#3417
Shmuel Nussinov Nitzan
#158365
Overall Influence
#3418
Raquel Fernández
#135456
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Raquel Fernández is an economist and currently the Julius Silver, Roslyn S. Silver and Enid Silver Winslow Professor of Economics at New York University. She is also a fellow of the Econometric Society.
Go to Profile#3419
Christopher M. James
#158422
Overall Influence
#3420
Sumit Agarwal
#158530
Overall Influence
#3421
Naci Mocan
#53563
Overall Influence
H. Naci Mocan is a Turkish-American economist and scholar. He currently is the Ourso Distinguished Chair of Economics at Louisiana State University. He is an expert on labor economics, health economics, and the economics of crime.
Go to Profile#3422
Harry G. Shaffer
#80510
Overall Influence
1919 - 2009 (90 years)
Harry G. Shaffer was Professor in the Economics Department at the University of Kansas. Shaffer was born on August 28, 1919, in Vienna, Austria. Fluent in German, Shaffer served with the US Army as a translator during World War II. He was active in the Civil Rights Movement and the movement against the War in Vietnam.
Go to Profile#3423
Stephen Ellwood Satchell
#158579
Overall Influence
#3424
Arvind Subramanian
#158692
Overall Influence
#3425
Charles Berry
#120871
Overall Influence
1930 - 2007 (77 years)
Charles Horace Berry was an American economist and specialist in industrial organization and applied microeconomics. He is well known for his derivation of the Berry Ratio, an analytical tool used extensively by tax and transfer pricing analysts over the world. Berry consulted with numerous government agencies, corporations, and law firms on antitrust and regulatory issues, transfer pricing, and corporate taxation.
Go to Profile#3426
Masami Imai
#69300
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Masami Imai is a Japanese economist. He currently works at Wesleyan University, where he serves as the Chair of the East Asian Studies department and as the Director of the Freeman Center for East Asian Studies. He holds a visiting position at the World Bank. Imai's research has appeared in several journals including the American Economic Journal, the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, the Journal of Law and Economics, Public Choice, the Journal of Banking and Finance, Explorations in Economic History, and the Asian Economic Journal. His research centers on Japan’s banking system and political economy, and the financial history of Japan.
Go to Profile#3427
John. W. Goodell
#158927
Overall Influence
#3428
Eva Mueller
#116451
Overall Influence
1920 - 2006 (86 years)
Eva Mueller was a Professor of Economics and Research Scientist at the University of Michigan. She studied consumer behavior in the United States and economic demography in low-income countries, particularly the relationship between income change and fertility change. She also made contributions to survey methodology, including methods of collecting employment statistics and time-use data.
Go to Profile#3429
Oliver Morrissey
#159007
Overall Influence
#3430
Massimiliano Mazzanti
#159053
Overall Influence
#3431
Giovanni Viegi
#159070
Overall Influence
#3432
Athanasios Moulakis
#40057
Overall Influence
1945 - 2015 (70 years)
Athanasios Moulakis was President Emeritus of the American University of Iraq - Sulaimani and a former Acting President and Chief Academic Officer, Professor of Government at the American University of Afghanistan.
Go to Profile#3433
Muhammad Yunus
#51230
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development from below". The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that "lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways ...
Go to Profile#3434
Steven A. Lippman
#159251
Overall Influence
#3435
Axel Ockenfels
#159289
Overall Influence
#3436
Derek Byerlee
#147917
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Derek Byerlee is an Australian agricultural researcher, economist and policy advisor. He has held senior positions at Michigan State University, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and the World Bank.
Go to Profile#3437
Jeffrey H. Bergstrand
#159387
Overall Influence
#3438
R. Howard Porter
#159414
Overall Influence
#3439
Robert G. Salomon
#159439
Overall Influence
#3440
Aysit Tansel
#141674
Overall Influence
Aysit Tansel is a Turkish economist and Professor of Economics at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. Her research revolves mainly around labour economics, with a focus on the economics of education. She ranks among the foremost Turkish economists in terms of research output.
Go to Profile#3441
Giovanni Lo Storto
#83072
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Giovanni Lo Storto is the General Manager of Luiss Guido Carli University. Biography After graduating in Economics at Luiss Guido Carli University with a thesis on insurance, from 1995 to 1997 he served as an Administrative Official in the Italian Army. After this experience, he came back to Luiss University working at first as an Assistant Professor and subject matter expert, and later as an Adjunct Professor in Economics and Management of Insurance Companies. Between 1997 and 1999, in addition to his academic activity, he worked on alternative risk transfer analysis at the Italian Reinsurance Union, which later became Swiss Re.
Go to Profile#3442
Montserrat Guillén
#107788
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Montserrat Guillén i Estany is a Spanish statistician and economist, whose research interests include actuarial science, fraud detection, and kernel density estimation. She is a professor and director of the Riskcenter in the department of econometrics at the University of Barcelona.
Go to Profile#3443
David Hillier
#78255
Overall Influence
David Hillier is Associate Principal at the University of Strathclyde and Executive Dean of the Strathclyde Business School, having previously held the Ziff Chair in Financial Markets at Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds. He has taught financial and accounting topics in a number of academic institutions in Greece, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Spain, Tanzania, Thailand and others. Professor David Hillier is an author of several books and other publications in the field of finance, corporate governance and accounting, including "Fundamentals of Corporate Finance: Europea...
Go to Profile#3444
Jyoti Kirit Parikh
#108594
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Jyoti Kirit Parikh is the current Executive Director of Integrated Research and Action for Development . She was a Member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change –India and is a recipient of Nobel Peace Prize awarded To IPCC authors in 2007. She was a Senior Professor at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research , Mumbai. She also worked at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis , Austria and served as a senior energy consultant at the National Institution for Transforming India . She was a visiting professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies of UNU, Tokyo .
Go to Profile#3445
Eddy K. A. Van Doorslaer
#159637
Overall Influence
#3446
Samuel Kobina Annim
#57751
Overall Influence
Samuel Kobina Annim is a Ghanaian associate professor of economics with specific concentration on micro development economics and applied micro econometrics, statistician and the current head of the Ghana Statistical Service. He was appointed on 1 March 2019
Go to Profile#3447
Ian Crawford
#68908
Overall Influence
Ian Crawford is professor of economics at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Nuffield College. Crawford is a research fellow at the Institute of Fiscal Studies. Crawford's research relates to the analysis of individual behaviour, with reference to nonparametric economic theory and statistical methods.
Go to Profile#3448
Simon G. Gilchrist
#159686
Overall Influence
#3449
Heng‐fu Zou
#159705
Overall Influence
#3450
Rohinton P. Medhora
#65013
Overall Influence
Rohinton P. Medhora is a Canadian economist. His fields of expertise are monetary and trade policy, international economic relations, and development economics. He is a Centre for International Governance Innovation distinguished fellow and former president of CIGI.
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