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 …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Economics,
#3751
Han van Dissel
#101027
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Han Gert van Dissel was the dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Amsterdam from 2011 to 2022, where he is a professor of business administration. He was previously the Director-General of CEDEP and Dean of the Rotterdam School of Management. His research and teaching focuses on the study of organization and information processes.
Go to Profile#3752
Mark Hugo Lopez
#139654
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Mark Hugo Lopez is Director of Hispanic Research at the Pew Research Center. Lopez has authored and co-authored numerous reports on the attitudes and opinions of Hispanics, education, migration and immigration, identity, and civic engagement and voter participation. Lopez also coordinates the Center's National Survey of Latinos.
Go to Profile#3753
Yves Pigneur
#4571
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Yves Pigneur is a Belgian computer scientist, and Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of Lausanne since 1984, known for his work on the business model canvas with Alexander Osterwalder. He is considered a "mastermind" among business strategics, his canvas have been used by numerous companies such as P&G, Amazon, Lockheed Martin and Tesla.
Go to Profile#3754
Frédéric Sautet
#125180
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Frédéric E. Sautet , is a French economist. He currently teaches economics in the United States. Biography After studying at the Institut d’études politiques de Paris, Sautet received his doctorate in economics from the University of Paris . He pursued his postdoctoral studies at New York University under the auspices of Peter Boettke, Israel Kirzner and Mario Rizzo.
Go to Profile#3755
Mohammed Said Nabulsi
#34952
Overall Influence
1928 - 2013 (85 years)
Mohammed Said Nabulsi was a Jordanian banker, economist and politician. He served as Governor of the Central Bank of Jordan two times, first from 1973–1985, and secondly from 1989–1995. Career Nabulsi was born in November 1928 in November 1928 in Jaffa, Mandatory Palestine. He studied law at Damascus University between 1948 and 1952 and received a Ph.D. in Economics from Georgetown University after studying there between 1954 and 1956 and 1959 and 1960. Between 1958 and 1959 he studied at University of California, Berkeley.
Go to Profile#3756
Christopher Foster
#70738
Overall Influence
1930 - 2022 (92 years)
Sir Christopher David Foster was a British academic at the University of Oxford and MIT, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics, a consultant at Coopers & Lybrand and PricewaterhouseCoopers, and a temporary civil servant.
Go to Profile#3757
Nicholas Gruen
#63182
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Nicholas Gruen is a prominent Australian economist and commentator on economic reform, innovation and the CEO of Lateral Economics. He is a visiting professor at King's College London's Policy Institute. He was formerly chair of the Australian Centre for Social Innovation, the Australian Government's Innovation Australia and Kaggle. Former Australian Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner called him "Australia's foremost public intellectual" while Martin Wolf described him as "the most brilliant economist you've never heard of".
Go to Profile#3758
Jeffrey E. Harris
#114086
Overall Influence
Jeffrey E. Harris, is an economist and physician who has been on the faculty of the Economics Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1977. He received an AB from Harvard University, as well as an MD and a PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. Having trained in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital , he maintained a medical practice at that institution until 2006. Since then, he has continued to practice as an internist at federally sponsored community health centers in Rhode Island, where the majority of his patients have poverty-leve...
Go to Profile#3759
Ulrike Leopold-Wildburger
#98080
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Ulrike Leopold-Wildburger is an Austrian mathematical economist, applied mathematician, and operations researcher. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Graz, where she headed the department of statistics and operations research, and is a former president of the Austrian Society of Operations Research.
Go to Profile#3760
Ned C. Hill
#53968
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Ned Cromar Hill is the American National Advisory Council professor of business management and was dean of the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University from 1998 to 2008. From 2011 to 2014, he served as president of the Romania Bucharest Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints .
Go to Profile#3761
Roman Grynberg
#86157
Overall Influence
Roman Grynberg is a Polish-born professor of economics, author and academic at the University of Namibia's Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. He has written economics papers on SACU and is specialised in international trade and commodities, and has written several research papers in the disciplines. He is also a regular columnist for The Namibian and has written for the Mail & Guardian on macroeconomic concepts.
Go to Profile#3762
Henrik Cronqvist
#56381
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Henrik Cronqvist is the Robert J. and Carolyn A. Waltos Dean and Professor of Economics of the George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University in Orange, California, a position he has held since August 2022. He previously served as a professor of finance, Bank of America scholar, and vice dean for faculty and research at the University of Miami School of Business, where he conducted interdisciplinary research and taught finance and management courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
Go to Profile#3763
Akbar Ali Khan
#50474
Overall Influence
1944 - 2022 (78 years)
Akbar Ali Khan was a Bangladeshi economist and educationist who served as a bureaucrat until 2001. He was a sub-divisional officer of Habiganj during the Bangladesh Liberation War when he decided to join the war. Later he served as an official of the Mujibnagar Government. After independence, he rejoined the civil service and reached the highest post of Cabinet Secretary. In the meanwhile, he also worked as a university teacher. Towards the end of 2006, he became one of the advisers of the Caretaker Government led by President Iajuddin Ahmed. He resigned along with three other advisers, namel...
Go to Profile#3764
Deanna M. Church
#62838
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Deanna Church is a scientist working in the areas of bioinformatics and genomics. She is known for her work on the human genome, "making the genome a friendlier place". Life Church graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia in 1990. She received a doctorate in Genomics from University of California, Irvine in 1997. Church describes her passion for bioinformatics as connected to her enjoyment of problem solving and being in a team that has direct impacts on people's medical care.
Go to Profile#3765
Steven R. Goldstein
#68602
Overall Influence
Steven R. Goldstein is an inventor, author and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at NYU School of Medicine. He is the director of NYU’s Gynecological Ultrasound and the co-director of the Bone Densitometry and Body Composition Unit.
Go to Profile#3766
Kohei Saito
#28411
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
is a Japanese philosopher. He is an associate professor at the University of Tokyo. Saito works on ecology and political economy from a Marxist perspective. His book, Capital in the Anthropocene, has been credited for inspiring a resurgence of interest in Marxist thought in Japan.
Go to Profile#3767
Charles Grier Sellers
#19364
Overall Influence
1923 - 2021 (98 years)
Charles Grier Sellers Jr. was an American historian. Sellers was best known for his book The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846, which offered a new interpretation of the economic, social, and political events taking place during the United States' Market Revolution.
Go to Profile#3768
Muhyiddin Yassin
#31769
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Tan Sri Dato' Haji Mahiaddin bin Md. Yasin , commonly known as Muhyiddin bin Mohd. Yassin , is a Malaysian politician who served as the eighth Prime Minister of Malaysia from 2020 to 2021. Appointed as prime minister amid a political crisis, Muhyiddin served for 17 months and resigned after losing parliamentary support.
Go to Profile#3769
Abena Oduro
#108813
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Abena Frempongmaa Daagye Oduro is the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Ghana where she also holds the position of Associate Professor of the Department of Economics. Having had 30 years of experience teaching, her areas of specialization are centred around gender and asset management, international economics, poverty analysis, macroeconomic theory and trade policy. Abena Oduro is the first Vice President of the Association for the Advancement of African Women Economists where Professor of Economics in University of Kansas, Elizabeth Asiedu, is the founder and president.
Go to Profile#3770
Petr Fradkov
#24868
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Petr Mikhaylovich Fradkov is a Russian economist and banker serving as the chairman and CEO of Promsvyazbank and the general director of the . Early life and education Fradkov was born in 1978 in Moscow. He is the son of Mikhail Fradkov. Fradkov graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 2000. In 2007, he earned a Master of Business Administration from the Kingston Business School. Fradkov completed a second MBA and a degree at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
Go to Profile#3771
Valentine Vishnevsky
#159270
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Valentine Pavlovich Vishnevsky is a Ukrainian economist., Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and professor of economics . The area of his scientific interests includes economic theory, modelling of economic systems, fiscal, monetary and industrial policy.
Go to Profile#3772
Werner Clement
#112605
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Werner Clement is an Austrian economist and retired professor of the Vienna University of Economics and Business. He has worked in the field of applied economics, serving with most major international bodies, while also holding academic appointments at major universities.
Go to Profile#3773
Mario Waissbluth
#89642
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Mario Daniel Waissbluth Subelman is a Chilean engineer, businessman, politician, and university teacher. He is, together with Cristián Warnken among others, one of the founders of the political party Amarillos por Chile. He was one of the original members of the Consejo de Alta Dirección Pública from 2004 to 2010. He is the founder of the NGO Educación 2020 which was established in 2008 and left in 2018. Waissbluth was a promoter of the "reject" option in the 2022 Chilean national plebiscite.
Go to Profile#3774
Fabio Pammolli
#171093
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Fabio Pammolli is an Italian economist, who is professor of finance and data science at Politecnico di Milano, and former president of Constructor University in Bremen, Germany. Biography Pammolli graduated in economics at the University of Pisa and did his doctoral studies at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies. In 1988-89 he served as an officer and as an instructor in Guardia di Finanza. From 1990 he served as an assistant and then as an associate professor at the University of Siena, while from 2001 he served as full professor at the University of Florence. Research stays have taken him to the Department of Physics at Boston University, where he collaborated with H.E.
Go to Profile#3775
Jean-François Richard
#168981
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Jean-François Richard is a Belgian-American economist, who is currently the distinguished university professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh. He has taught and done research at five major universities, primarily in the field of econometrics. His interests are auctions, computational methods, collusions, Bayesian methods and econometric modeling. He has been extensively involved as author, editor, and advisor with scholarly publications in econometrics and related fields.
Go to Profile#3776
Geoffrey A. Jehle
#103641
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Geoffrey A. Jehle is a professor in Economics at Vassar College. And also, he serves as faculty in the Program in Economic Policy Management at School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. Jehle's work is on microeconomic theory and international trade but he is perhaps best known for the textbook Advanced microeconomic theory written jointly with Philip J. Reny.
Go to Profile#3777
William Wascher
#148233
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
William Louis Wascher is an American economist and the deputy director of the Division of Research and Statistics in the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Education Wascher graduated with a B.A. in economics and mathematics from the University of Delaware in 1978. He went on to complete his M.A. in 1980 and Ph.D. in 1983 in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#3778
Monique Jeanblanc
#32332
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Monique Jeanblanc-Picqué is a French mathematician known for her work in mathematical finance; other topics in her research have included control theory and probability theory. She is a professor emerita at the University of Évry Val d'Essonne.
Go to Profile#3779
Abdüllatif Şener
#85488
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Abdüllatif Şener is a Turkish politician. He was Minister of Finance of Turkey from 1996 to 1997 and Deputy Prime Minister from 2002 to 2007, under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Life and career Şener was born in Gürün, Sivas Province in Turkey. He graduated from the School of Political Sciences at Ankara University. He earned his PhD degree from Gazi University in Ankara. He lectured on finance at Gazi University and Hacettepe University, before he served as a controller in the Department of Revenues within the Ministry of Finance.
Go to Profile#3780
Vladimir Okrepilov
#92812
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Vladimir V. Okrepilov is an economist and professor. General Director of the Federal budgetary institution State Regional Centre for Standardization, Metrology and Testing in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region .
Go to Profile#3781
W David Bradford
#173529
Overall Influence
#3782
Montek Singh Ahluwalia
#173583
Overall Influence
#3783
Folkert de Roos
#137228
Overall Influence
1920 - 2000 (80 years)
Folkert de Roos was a Dutch economist and Professor of Economics at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Biography Born in a Reformed family in Leeuwarden where his father was working as baker, De Roos started to study Economics at the Netherlands School of Economics in Rotterdam late-1930s. There he received his MA in 1942, and later in 1949 his PhD cum laude with a thesis entitled "De algemene banken in Nederland" . This work would become a seminal work for generations of Dutch students.
Go to Profile#3784
George Alexander Duncan
#98216
Overall Influence
1902 - 2005 (103 years)
George Alexander Duncan , publishing as G. A. Duncan, was an Irish economist and academic, specialising in political economy and the Austrian school of economics. He was Professor of Political Economy at the Trinity College Dublin from 1934 to 1967, and Pro-Chancellor of the University of Dublin from 1965 to 1972.
Go to Profile#3785
Ann Lee
#65832
Overall Influence
Ann Lee is a Hong Kong-born American author and commentator on global economics and finance issues. Overview Biography Lee was born in Hong Kong to Chinese parents who had escaped from the turmoil of the early years of the PRC; subsequently the family emigrated to the United States. She attended U.C. Berkeley, Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and Harvard Business School . After working for two investments banks, she became a hedge fund partner and a trader in credit derivatives. She also taught at Pace University from 2006 to 2007. From 2010 ...
Go to Profile#3786
Michael Corbey
#90482
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Michael Hubert Corbey is a Dutch business economist, management consultant, and Professor of Accounting and Control at the TIAS School for Business and Society at the Tilburg University. Biography Corbey grew up in Roermond and received his MA in Technology Management at the Eindhoven University of Technology, and in 1995 his PhD with a thesis entitled "Logistiek management & management accounting : logistieke flexibiliteit in bedrijfseconomisch perspectief" under supervision of Jacques Theeuwes.
Go to Profile#3787
Claudia R. Binder
#41136
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Claudia R. Binder is a Swiss, Canadian and Colombian environmental scientist working in the field of human-environment systems and sustainability s. Since March 2016 she has been a full professor the La Mobilière Chair on Urban Ecology and Sustainable Living at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and founding director of the Laboratory for Human-Environment Relations in Urban Systems at School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering of EPFL. Since January 2020 she has been serving as dean of ENAC at EPFL.
Go to Profile#3788
Christine Maria Jasch
#95391
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Christine Maria Jasch is an Austrian economist, author and accountant. Life and career Christine Jasch completed secondary school in Vienna, where she matriculated in 1979 to study at the University of Vienna's Department of Economics, and at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. In 1984 she applied for a Studium Irregulare for Ecological Economics. She became a certified public accountant in 1989 and lead verifier according to the EU EMAS Regulation in 1995. In 1989 she founded the Vienna Institute for Environmental Management and Economics, IÖW. In 1999, she habilitated in Environmental Management and Economics at the Austrian University for Agriculture.
Go to Profile#3789
José De Gregorio
#153040
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
José De Gregorio Rebeco is a Chilean economist, academic, researcher, consultant and politician. He has been the Governor of the Central Bank of Chile, Minister of the Economy, Mining and Energy during the administration of Ricardo Lagos and is currently the Dean of the School of Economics and Business of the Universidad de Chile. He is also a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Go to Profile#3790
Giuseppe Soda
#92207
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Giuseppe Soda is Full Professor of Organization Theory & Social Network Analysis at Università Bocconi and at SDA Bocconi School of Management where he served as Dean from 2016 to 2022. Career Soda is Professor of Organization Theory and Design, and Network Analysis at Bocconi University, Milan. The Board of Trustees of Bocconi University appointed Soda as Dean of SDA Bocconi School of Management in 2016, role fulfilled until the year 2022. Prior to the appointment as Dean, Soda was elected in 2013 as the Director of the Management & Technology Department at Bocconi University, and appointed ...
Go to Profile#3791
Wayne B. Thomas
#95933
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Wayne B. Thomas is an American economist and Professor of Accounting at the University of Oklahoma who has specifically focused on market-based accounting research. He currently serves as Interim Dean of Price College of Business at the University of Oklahoma.
Go to Profile#3792
Geir Asheim
#168808
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Geir Bjarne Asheim is a Norwegian economist and professor of economics at the Department of Economics, University of Oslo. Asheim obtained his cand.mag. degree from the University of Bergen in 1975 and his Ph.D. from University of California at Santa Barbara in 1979. He mainly works in economic theory, publishing in journals such as Journal of Economic Theory and Theoretical Economics. Most of his research output is theoretical work relating to climate economics, intergenerational equity, game theory or national accounting.
Go to Profile#3793
Richard Holden
#95872
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Richard Holden is an Australian economist and Professor of Economics at the University of New South Wales. He was previously a faculty member at the University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#3794
Herman D. Stein
#57205
Overall Influence
1917 - 2009 (92 years)
Herman D. Stein, DSW was Dean of the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences and University Professor Emeritus at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. A pioneer of social work profession, he excelled as an educator, scholar, internationalist, university administrator, and leader in a variety of professional associations in his long career, spanning more than sixty years. Stein served as Provost of Case Western Reserve University during the turbulent years of the 1960s and continued teaching as a full professor. He was asked to serve as Provost again in 1985. He was twice a Fel...
Go to Profile#3795
Françoise Forges
#102852
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Françoise Forges is a Belgian and French economist known for her work in game theory. She is professor of economics at Paris Dauphine University. Education and career Forges was born on 3 July 1958 in Brussels, but is a French citizen. She studied mathematics at the Université catholique de Louvain, earning a licenciate in 1980 and completing her doctorate there in 1984, advised by Jean-François Mertens. She earned a habilitation at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University in 1992.
Go to Profile#3796
Benjamin Akande
#33932
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Benjamin Ola Akande is a Nigerian-American academic, professor, and business leader. In May 2021, he was named Senior Vice President, Director Human Resources, Head of Diversity and Inclusion, Stifel Financial, a wealth management and investment-banking firm founded in 1890 and based in St. Louis, Missouri with $4.7 billion annual revenue, $39 billion wealth management custodian, $36 billion asset management. He serves as a key advisor to Stifel on the execution of a companywide ESG strategy. He leads the talent organization with over 10,000 employees in over 400 global offices. Dr. Akande ser...
Go to Profile#3797
Werner Reinartz
#102383
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Werner Josef Reinartz is a German economist. Since 2007 he is a Professor of Retailing and Customer Management at the University of Cologne and the Director of the Center for Research in Retailing .
Go to Profile#3798
Herman B. Leonard
#114965
Overall Influence
Herman B. Leonard is an American economist, currently the George F. Baker, Jr. Professor at of Public Management at Harvard Business School and Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration at John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Go to Profile#3799
Michael Thrasher
#32097
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Michael Thrasher is a British academic, Professor of Politics in the School of Sociology, Politics & Law at the University of Plymouth. He is also Sky News' election analyst. Thrasher was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire in 1953. he received his BA in politics from the University of Liverpool in 1974. He remained in Liverpool to study for his doctoral thesis, "The political theory of English local government, 1834-1972". He was awarded his Ph.D. in 1981. He began lecturing at Plymouth in 1977, becoming Professor of Politics in 1997. He is co-director of the Local Government Chronicle Elec...
Go to Profile#3800
Eran Yashiv
#133632
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Eran Yashiv is an Israeli economist and policy advisor. His research focuses on topics of macroeconomics, including the labour market and business cycles. More specifically, he is interested in the connections between the value of labour and the value of the firm.
Go to Profile