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,
#3451
Gene A. Rowe
#159761
Overall Influence
#3452
Sandra McNally
#108429
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Sandra McNally is an Irish economist, who is Professor of Economics at the University of Surrey and works at the Centre for Economic Performance , at the London School of Economics . Her research interests include economic evaluation of government policies in schools and further education and labor market returns to education and training.
Go to Profile#3453
Jon Magnussen
#101296
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Jon Magnussen is a Norwegian Professor in health economics and Head of Department of Public Health and General Practice at Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Organization and financing of health care services and productivity and efficiency in the health care sector is some of his research topics.
Go to Profile#3454
Andrew F. Siegel
#159999
Overall Influence
#3455
Bruce M. Hannon
#160007
Overall Influence
#3456
Morgan Kelly
#105514
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Morgan Kelly is Professor of Economics at University College Dublin . Described by The Irish Times as the country's official soothsayer, Kelly notably predicted the bursting of the Irish property bubble.
Go to Profile#3457
Christine Whitehead
#140305
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Christine Whitehead is a British Academic and Emeritus Professor of Housing Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is also the Deputy Directory of LSE London, an urban research group at London School of Economics and Political Science
Go to Profile#3458
Paul Charles Cheshire
#160111
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
#3459
Robert Allan Schwartz
#160201
Overall Influence
#3460
Dietmar Harhoff
#160234
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#3461
Chandrasekharan Rajendran
#160328
Overall Influence
#3462
Harry P. Huizinga
#160550
Overall Influence
#3463
Nancy Marion
#96511
Overall Influence
Nancy Peregrim Marion is the George J. Records 1956 Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, where she conducts research in a "variety of topics in international macroeconomics, including financial crises in emerging markets, international reserve holdings in East Asia, international risk sharing, and policy volatility in developing countries."
Go to Profile#3464
Purnomo Yusgiantoro
#82904
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Purnomo Yusgiantoro is an Indonesian politician. He served as Minister of Defense in the Second United Indonesia Cabinet from 2009 to 2014. Previously, he served as Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources from 2000 to 2009. He also served as secretary-general of OPEC in 2004.
Go to Profile#3465
Danielle Labhaoise Thornton
#160665
Overall Influence
#3466
Xiaolan Fu
#109724
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Professor Xiaolan Fu is a British-based Chinese economist, and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. She is the Founding Director of the Technology and Management Centre for Development . She is a Professor of Technology and International Development and Fellow of Green Templeton College at the University of Oxford.
Go to Profile#3467
Ilan Alon
#160706
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
#3468
Yoram Weiss
#160710
Overall Influence
#3469
Marco Caliendo
#160723
Overall Influence
#3470
Barton Wade Brorsen
#160782
Overall Influence
#3471
John G. Riley
#160881
Overall Influence
#3472
Wolfgang G. Schwanitz
#27270
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Wolfgang G. Schwanitz is a German-American Middle East historian. He is a specialist in comparative studies of modern international relations between the United States, the Middle East, and Europe. Schwanitz is known for his research on relations between Arabs, Jews, and Germans, and on the history of German relations with the Middle East.
Go to Profile#3473
Karl Aiginger
#118664
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Karl Aiginger is an Austrian economist. He was the head of the Austrian Institute of Economic Research between 2005 and 2016, he is a professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and an honorary professor at the Johannes Kepler University Linz. He was succeeded by Christoph Badelt as the head of WIFO in September 2016. He established and manages the lateral thinking platform Policy Crossover Center, an interdisciplinary discussion forum on European policy. As an author, he is widely held in libraries worldwide.
Go to Profile#3474
Stephen F. Leroy
#161021
Overall Influence
#3475
Zhongxiang Zhang Zhang
#161163
Overall Influence
#3476
Petia Topalova
#148427
Overall Influence
Petia Topalova is the Deputy Chief in the Emerging Economies Unit of the European Department of the International Monetary Fund and Mission Chief for the Slovak Republic. She is also a research economist with publications in development and trade economics.
Go to Profile#3477
Ronald Campbell Smith
#161263
Overall Influence
#3478
Yeon-Koo Che
#127417
Overall Influence
Yeon-Koo Che is a Korean American economist. He is the Kelvin J. Lancaster Professor of Economic Theory at Columbia University, a position he held since 2009. Prior to joining Columbia in 2005, he was a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Go to Profile#3479
Nanak C. Kakwani
#161343
Overall Influence
#3480
Will Alston Julian M. Martin
#161350
Overall Influence
#3481
Nigel Harris
#75243
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Nigel Harris is a British economist specializing in the economics of metropolitan areas. He is Professor Emeritus of the Economics of the City at University College London where in the 1980s he was Director for eight years of the Development Planning Unit at The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment. He is also a senior policy consultant to the think tank, the European Policy Centre, in Brussels, on the subject of international migration.
Go to Profile#3482
Jean Olson Lanjouw
#115242
Overall Influence
1962 - 2005 (43 years)
Jean Olson "Jenny" Lanjouw was an American economist, economics professor at Yale University and associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley's Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. She undertook empirical work on poverty and economic development, developed statistical tools to project poverty and inequalities at the local level, and a policy system to provide access to drugs for developing countries without violating drug manufacturers' patents.
Go to Profile#3483
Derek Salman Pugh
#161456
Overall Influence
#3484
Kevin J. Stiroh
#161492
Overall Influence
#3485
Gustavo Garza Villarreal
#65913
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Gustavo Garza is a Mexican economist, Emeritus Researcher of the National Council of Science and Technology in Mexico and Professor of Urban Economics at El Colegio de México. He obtained his B.A. in economics from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León in Monterrey, his master's degree in economics from El Colegio de México and his Ph.D. in economics from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He also holds a Diploma in Planning and Economic Policy from the University of Cambridge. Garza joined the faculty of El Colegio de México in 1970, where he was the Director of the Center for Demographic, Urban and Environmental Studies.
Go to Profile#3486
Hooi Hooi Lean
#125702
Overall Influence
Hooi Hooi Lean is a Malaysian economist and a professor at the School of Social Sciences in the Economics program at University of Science, Malaysia. Lean acts as an associate editor of Singapore Economic Review, Capital Market Review and Frontiers in Energy and an editor of J. of Asian Finance, Economics and Business and East Asian J. of Business Management.
Go to Profile#3487
Beck A. Taylor
#48841
Overall Influence
Beck A. Taylor is an American academic administrator and economist serving as the 19th president of Samford University, a private Christian university in Birmingham, Alabama. Taylor took office in July 2021, succeeding Andrew Westmoreland.
Go to Profile#3488
Bjørn Hofmann
#57085
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Bjørn Morten Hofmann is a Norwegian researcher in philosophy of medicine and ethics with special interest for the relationship between epistemology and ethics. His main subjects in the philosophy of medicine have been the concepts of health and disease. In the philosophy of the health sciences he has studied causation, rationality, evidence, diagnosis, overdiagnosis, medicalization and futility. Reproductive technologies, biobanks and organ transplantation have been his main topics in the ethics of biotechnologies. Additionally, Hofmann has published in research ethics, ethics in health techn...
Go to Profile#3489
George Kapetanios
#161845
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
#3490
John Frederick Humphrey
#161857
Overall Influence
#3491
Mohamed Bechri
#87971
Overall Influence
Mohamed Bechri is a professor of economics at the University of Sousse, Tunisia. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Southern California. Human rights activism He is a human rights activist and former chair of the Tunisian section of Amnesty International. Human Rights Watch cites him in its report on the repression of human rights in Tunisia.
Go to Profile#3492
Catherine Waddams
#68470
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Catherine Mary Waddams is a British economist and academic, who specialises in industrial organization, privatisation, regulation, and competition. Since 2000, she has been Professor of Regulation at Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia. From 2000 to 2011, she served as the first director of the Centre of Competition and Regulation at the University of East Anglia.
Go to Profile#3493
Eytan Sheshinski
#161966
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
#3494
Bernhard Truffer
#162114
Overall Influence
#3495
Bhaskar Vira
#51492
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Bhaskar Vira is an Indian academic, professor of Political Economy, and the current Pro Vice Chancellor for Education for Cambridge University. From 2019 until 2022 he was Head of Department of Geography, University of Cambridge. He was the founding director of the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, and is a fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. In 2018, he was awarded the Busk Medal by the Royal Geographical Society for his contributions in the fields of environment, development and economy. In 2021, he was elected to a Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences fo...
Go to Profile#3496
Leonardo Gambacorta
#162173
Overall Influence
#3497
Paul Sheard
#110337
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Paul James Sheard is an Australian-American economist. Most recently he was Research Fellow and earlier M-RCBG Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, after previously being Vice Chairman of S&P Global. Sheard has held chief economist positions at Lehman Brothers, Nomura Securities, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, and S&P Global. Prior to entering financial markets in 1995, he was an academic economist based in Australia, Japan and the United States, specializing in the Japanese economy and the economics of firm organization. He was ...
Go to Profile#3498
Laurence C. Baker
#162183
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
#3499
Peterson Kitakogelu Ozili
#162224
Overall Influence
#3500
Salim Yasin
#103210
Overall Influence
1937 - 2016 (79 years)
Salim Yasin was a Syrian economist, academic and former deputy prime minister for economic affairs. Early life and education Yasin was born in Latakia on 10 October 1937. He received a bachelor's degree from Damascus University in 1960. He obtained a master's degree in economics from the University of Colorado in 1963, and a PhD in 1965.
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