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,
#4051
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
#57452
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Seth Isaac Stephens-Davidowitz is an American data scientist, economist, and author. He has worked as a New York Times op-ed contributor, a data scientist at Google, as well as a visiting lecturer at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has published research using Google Trends search data, as well as data from Wikipedia and Facebook, to gain real-time insights into people's thoughts and beliefs that they may be unwilling to admit publicly.
Go to Profile#4052
Richard Gisser
#91736
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Richard Gisser is an Austrian demographer who held leading positions at his country's statistical office until his retirement. He was also the long-time director, then deputy director, of the Vienna Institute of Demography at the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#4053
Eugene Kontorovich
#47546
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Eugene Kontorovich is a legal scholar, specializing in constitutional and international law. Career Kontorovich studied law at the University of Chicago. He later clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the U.S. Court of Appeals. In 2011, he received a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and was later awarded the Federalist Society's Bator Award, given annually to a young scholar under 40.
Go to Profile#4054
Ann Harding
#165038
Overall Influence
1958 - 2023 (65 years)
Ann Margaret Harding was an Australian economist and Emeritus Professor at the University of Canberra. Academic career Harding completed a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney. She was a contributor to Business Review magazine in 1980 and then joined the Department of the Parliamentary Library in Canberra as a legislative research specialist in January 1981. In 1982 she was employed as a policy analyst by the Department of Social Security. She graduated with a PhD titled Lifetime income distribution and redistribution in Australia: Applications of a dynamic cohort microsimulat...
Go to Profile#4055
Ayşe İmrohoroğlu
#175541
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Ayşe İmrohoroğlu is a Turkish economist who is Professor of Finance and Business Economics at the USC Marshall School of Business. Biography İmrohoroğlu obtained her BS in economics from the Middle East Technical University in 1980 and PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1988 with a dissertation titled "Aggregate Implications of Liquidity Constraints" under the advisory of Edward C. Prescott. She joined the USC Marshall School of Business in 1989 as an assistant professor of Finance and Business Economics, got appointed as an associate professor of Finance and Business Economics in 1994 and has been a professor of Finance and Business Economics since 2000.
Go to Profile#4056
Vijay Krishna
#169985
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Vijay Krishna is an Indian American economist who is a Distinguished Professor of Economics and Job Market Placement Director of the Department of Economics at the Pennsylvania State University. Biography Krishna was born on 7 February 1956 in Delhi, India. He obtained his BA in Mathematics and MA in economics from the Delhi University in 1976 and 1978, respectively, and his PhD from the Princeton University in 1983. Krishna taught as assistant professor at the Columbia University from 1982 to 1984 before moving to the Harvard University where he was Assistant Professor from 1984 to 1988 and Associate Professor from 1988 to 1993.
Go to Profile#4057
O Sonfa
#113645
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
#4058
Philipp Sandner
#62058
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Philipp Sandner is a German economist and professor in the area of business and IT at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. Life and career Sandner was born in Heidelberg. Following his Abitur, he completed civilian service in 1999 and studied business administration specialising in business and also IT at the University of Mannheim and at the Copenhagen Business School from 2000 to 2005. From 2005 to 2009, he worked as a researcher at the Institute for Innovation Research, Technology Management and Entrepreneurship at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich with Dietmar Harhoff as advisor.
Go to Profile#4059
Cecilia Castaño
#139335
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Cecilia Castaño Collado is a PhD in Political Science, professor of Applied Economics, and lecturer at the Complutense University of Madrid's Department of Applied Economics. She is an expert in information technology and its effect on women's employment and work. She has conducted numerous investigations on the digital gender gap and women's access to the information society. In 2006 she created the Research Program on Gender and the Information Society of the Open University of Catalonia . She has been a visiting researcher at Harvard University, MIT, and UC Berkeley.
Go to Profile#4060
Klaus Schwab
#182394
Overall Influence
#4061
Christopher Colclough
#133677
Overall Influence
1946 - 2017 (71 years)
Christopher Louis Colclough was a British development economist and academic, who specialised in education in developing countries. Colclough was director, Centre for Education and International Development, and Commonwealth Professor of Education and Development, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. He also was a life fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#4062
Peter Thompson
#182534
Overall Influence
#4063
Willene Johnson
#145876
Overall Influence
Willene A. Johnson is an American economist who is a former vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, former U.S. Executive Director of the African Development Bank, and a former president of the National Economic Association.
Go to Profile#4064
Joanna Poyago-Theotoky
#125219
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Joanna Poyago-Theotoky is an economist and researcher, currently a full professor at the University of Salento, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University and a visiting professor at the University of East Anglia. Previously, she has held positions at the University of St Andrews, University of Nottingham, University of Bristol, Loughborough University and La Trobe University, Melbourne. She has served as a member of the Economics Learning Standards Working Party commissioned by the Australian Government to develop new learning standards for Economics Bachelor and Master's degre...
Go to Profile#4065
Robert K. A. Gardiner
#72358
Overall Influence
1914 - 1994 (80 years)
Robert Kweku Atta Gardiner was a Ghanaian civil servant, university professor, and economist who served as the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa from January 1962 until October 1975, and as the Commissioner for Economic Planning of Ghana from October 1975 until May 1978.
Go to Profile#4066
Timothy Feddersen
#180402
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Timothy J. Feddersen is an American economist and political scientist. He is the Wendell Hobbs Professor of Managerial Politics, Professor of Managerial Economics & Decision Sciences, and Chair of the Personnel Committee at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He earned his B.A. degree in mathematics from Indiana University in 1985 and his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Rochester in 1993. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2015.
Go to Profile#4067
Bruce Nissen
#74983
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Bruce Nissen is a professor emeritus of labor studies and director of research at the Center for Labor Research and Studies at Florida International University . He also formerly directed that university's Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy .
Go to Profile#4068
E. M. S. Namboodiripad
#22073
Overall Influence
1909 - 1998 (89 years)
Elamkulam Manakkal Sankaran Namboodiripad , popularly known by his initials 'E. M. S.' was an Indian communist politician and theorist, who served as the first Chief Minister of Kerala in 1957–1959 and then again in 1967–1969. As a member of the Communist Party of India , he became the first non-Congress Chief Minister in the Indian republic. In 1964, he led a faction of the CPI that broke away to form the Communist Party of India .
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Benjamin Gilad
#78219
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Benjamin Gilad is an author, consultant, and teacher in the field of competitive intelligence. He is a co-founder of the Fuld-Gilad-Herring Academy of Competitive Intelligence. He was educated in psychology and philosophy at Tel Aviv University. After moving to the United States he studied business at Central Missouri State University, and later obtained a PhD from New York University. He is the author of The Business Intelligence System, Business Blind Sports, Early Warning, Business War games, and articles related to the field of competitive intelligence.
Go to Profile#4070
Chi-ming Hou
#174111
Overall Influence
1924 - 1991 (67 years)
Chi-ming Hou was an American economist. Biography Hou was born on December 3, 1924, in Hebei, China. He obtained a bachelor's degree in law from Fu Jen Catholic University in 1945, a Master of Arts degree from the University of Oregon in 1949, a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1954.
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Nicolas Petit
#177188
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Nicolas Petit is a French Belgian academic specializing in competition policy, economic regulation, law and technology. He is Joint Chair in Competition Law at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, in the Department of Law and at the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies.
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Deepak Nayyar
#170897
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Deepak Nayyar is an Indian economist and academician. He is a professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Chairperson of the Board of Governors of Centre for the Study of Developing Societies New Delhi. He has taught at the University of Oxford, the University of Sussex, the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta , and the New School for Social Research, New York City. He was Vice Chancellor of the University of Delhi from 2000 to 2005.
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Fuhito Kojima
#182732
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Fuhito Kojima is a Japanese economist and a professor at the University of Tokyo. Career He received a B.A. from University of Tokyo in 2003 and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2008. Fellowships and awards 2008–2011, Fellow, VCASI.2013–2015, Sloan Research Fellow.2014–present, SIEPR Fellow.2015–present, Economic Theory Fellow.2016, Social Choice and Welfare Prize.2021, Nakahara Prize
Go to Profile#4074
Susan Williams McElroy
#168427
Overall Influence
Susan Williams McElroy is an American economist who is an Associate Professor of Economics and Education Policy at the University of Texas-Dallas. She is a former president of the National Economic Association.
Go to Profile#4075
Daniel Muzyka
#54456
Overall Influence
Daniel F. Muzyka is a Professor Emeritus of Management as well as a Dean Emeritus at The University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business. He is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of The Conference Board of Canada.
Go to Profile#4076
Paul De Grauwe
#182830
Overall Influence
#4077
Kuan Chung-ming
#80300
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Kuan Chung-ming is a Taiwanese politician and academic. He was the last minister of the Council for Economic Planning and Development from 2013 to 2014 and served as the first minister of the succeeding government agency, the National Development Council , from 2014 to 2015. He was formerly the President of National Taiwan University from 2019- to 2023 and is a Chair Professor in the Department of Finance of National Taiwan University.
Go to Profile#4078
Mojmír Povolný
#88725
Overall Influence
1921 - 2012 (91 years)
Mojmír Povolný was a Czech lawyer and politician. He was a professor of government at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, from 1958 to 1987. He began his academic career with a J.D. degree from Masaryk University School of Law in Czechoslovakia. On August 21, 2012, Povolný died at home in Appleton. In the earlier part of his life, he was politically exiled for devoting a majority of his life to liberating Czechoslovakia from Communist and Soviet occupation. Povolný's service to Czechoslovakia was recognized by President Václav Havel in 1995 when he was presented with the Order of Tomá...
Go to Profile#4079
Michel Aglietta
#182882
Overall Influence
#4080
Carl Benedikt Frey
#182903
Overall Influence
#4081
Bruce Chapman
#138928
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Bruce James Chapman is an Australian economist and academic known for being the founder or architect of the HECS system. HECS is the Higher Education Contribution Scheme loans system. He is currently a professor at the College of Business and Economics, Australian National University. In 2001, he became a Member of the Order of Australia , "for service to the development of Australian economic, labour market and social policy". In 2017, Professor Chapman was appointed the inaugural Sir Roland Wilson Chair of Economics.
Go to Profile#4082
Michael New
#108080
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Michael New is an American political scientist, a visiting associate professor at the Catholic University of America, and an associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute. New's research has focused on legislation that restricts abortion. Anti-abortion groups have cited New's research to argue for the effectiveness of various types of state level laws restricting abortion rights, including informed consent laws, parental involvement laws, and public funding restrictions. New's research has also been used to validate Presidential platforms for and against abortion restrictions. Anti-ab...
Go to Profile#4083
R. Kerry Turner
#182958
Overall Influence
#4084
Mirjam van Praag
#148167
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Mirjam van Praag is a Dutch econometrician. She is the President of the . Van Praag was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020. Biography Mirjam van Praag is the younger daughter of the econometrician Bernard van Praag and Loes van Weezel . Both of her parents are of Jewish descent and went into hiding to avoid capture by the Nazis and their collaborators. She grew up with her older sister near Rotterdam.
Go to Profile#4085
Robert Porter
#147058
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Robert Hugh Porter is an American economist and William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of economics at Northwestern University. His research focuses on industrial organisation and auctions. Education Porter received his undergraduate degree from the University of Western Ontario's Department of Mathematics and Economics in 1976. He went on to further study at Princeton University, which granted him a Ph. D. in economics in 1981.
Go to Profile#4086
Nake M. Kamrany
#49696
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Nake M. Kamrany Ph.D., J.D. is a professor at the University of Southern California and Afghan-American economist. Kamrany has over 20 publications on the political economy of Afghanistan. He has been a Consultant to the United Nations and the U.S. Government.
Go to Profile#4087
Angela Redish
#180910
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Angela Redish is a professor of economics at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia and the acting President of the Canadian Economics Association. From 2001 to 2006, Redish served as the Head of Department of Economics at the University of British Columbia and was awarded The President's Medal of Excellence by the University of British Columbia in 2018 for her contributions towards establishing the Vancouver School of Economics.
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Farshad Fatemi
#169503
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Seyed Farshad Fatemi Ardestani is an Iranian economist and a member of Iranian National Competition Council. He is Associate Professor of Economics and Vice President for Administration and Finance at Sharif University of Technology. Fatemi is known for his works on game theory and industrial organization.
Go to Profile#4089
Tomas J. Philipson
#183174
Overall Influence
#4090
Sten Malmquist
#79682
Overall Influence
1917 - 2004 (87 years)
Sten Malmquist was a Swedish economist and statistician. He is among others famous for having constructed the Malmquist index. Malmquist was born in Lund, and his father's work as an astronomer took the family first to Saltsjöbaden and then to Uppsala. After collaborating with Herman Wold on econometric studies of consumer demand, Malmquist got his Ph.D. in statistics from Uppsala University in 1948. Malmquist's work on duality and the metric theory of utility is still used in microeconomic theory. In 1954, he was appointed professor at Stockholm University College, later known as Stockholm U...
Go to Profile#4091
Maria João Rodrigues
#129852
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Maria João Rodrigues GOIH is a Portuguese academic and politician who served as Member of the European Parliament and Vice-President of the Group of the Socialists and Democrats from 2014 until 2019. Since 2017 she is also President of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies , succeeding Italian politician Massimo d'Alema.
Go to Profile#4092
William D. Bradford
#156058
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
William Donald Bradford is an American economist who is Professor Emeritus of Finance and former Dean of the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. He is a former president of the National Economic Association and was inducted into the Minority Business Hall of Fame in 2013.
Go to Profile#4093
Diana Galoyan
#176838
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Diana Robert Galoyan , Armenian Economist, Doctor of Sciences /Economics/ Professor․ Biography Education 1996-2001: World Economics, Faculty of General Economics at Yerevan State Institute of Economics, /Diploma of Excellence/, 2002: part-time PhD study at the Armenian State University of Economics.
Go to Profile#4094
Gloria Bromell Tinubu
#140295
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Gloria Bromell Tinubu is an applied economist, educator, and political figure. She served on the Atlanta City Council and as a member of the Georgia State Assembly, as well as running as a candidate for Mayor of Atlanta.
Go to Profile#4095
Edward Deak
#183276
Overall Influence
Dr. Edward Deak is the former Roger M. Lynch Professor of Economics and retired Chair of the Department of Economics at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. Dr. Deak is also a Board Member and the Connecticut Forecast Manager for the New England Economic Partnership.
Go to Profile#4096
Andrea Colli
#85825
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Andrea Colli is an Italian academic. He is a Professor of Business History, Head of Department of Social and Political sciences at Bocconi University. He is the author of several books. Early life Andrea Colli was born 15 June 1966. He graduated from Bocconi University, where he also earned a PhD in Economic and Social History.
Go to Profile#4097
Nicolas Marceau
#129905
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Nicolas Marceau is a Canadian economist, university professor, politician and former Minister of Finance. He was previously a professor of economics at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec in a by-election on September 21, 2009, representing the electoral district of Rousseau as a member of the Parti Québécois. He was named minister of finance and the economy in September 2012 after the PQ won the 2012 general election.
Go to Profile#4098
Anne Piehl
#93536
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Anne Morrison Piehl is an American economist and criminologist. She is a professor of economics at Rutgers University, the director of Rutgers' Program in Criminal Justice, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She joined Rutgers as an associate professor in 2005, and became a full professor there in 2012. Also in 2012, she became a fellow of the IZA Institute of Labor Economics. In 2020, she was named to the James Cullen Chair in Economics, where she will serve a five-year term. She served on the New Jersey Committee on Government Efficiency and Reform Correct...
Go to Profile#4099
Andrew Kamarck
#171680
Overall Influence
1914 - 2010 (96 years)
Andrew Martin Kamarck was an American economist, Director of the Economic Development Institute at the World Bank and Regents Professor at University of California, Los Angeles. In 1936, Kamarck got his BA summa cum laude at Harvard University. In 1951, he got his Ph.D at Harvard. He worked for the Federal Reserve Board and, during World War II, he "was posted to the Allied Control Commission for Italy, where he supervised the Banca d'Italia". In 1944, he "was assigned as Chief of the U.S. Financial Intelligence in Germany".
Go to Profile#4100
Sandra Shelton
#93320
Overall Influence
Sandra Waller Shelton was an American economist, specializing in auditing and accounting. She was a professor in the School of Accountancy & MIS at DePaul University, where she was named KPMG Alumni Distinguished Professor in 2012 and KPMG Neil F. Casson Endowed Professor in 2016.
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