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Hilton L. Root

Hilton L. Root

Professor of Public Policy

3401 Fairfax Drive– MS 3B1
Arlington, Virginia 22201


Dr. Hilton Root, an academic and policy specialist in international political economy and development, is joining the faculty of the School of Public Policy at George Mason University in summer of 2006. He was Freeman Fellow and Visiting Professor of Economics at Pitzer College and Senior Fellow at Claremont Graduate University from June 2003 to June 2006. He served the current administration as US Executive Director Designate of the Asian Development Bank, and as senior advisor on development finance to the Department of the Treasury. Dr. Root was Director and Senior Fellow of Global Studies at the Milken Institute and was a Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Initiative on Economic Growth and Democracy at the Hoover Institution. His areas of expertise are international economics, economic development and policy reform, and Asian affairs.

As a policy expert, Dr. Root advises the Asian Development Bank, the IMF, the World Bank, the UNDP, the OECD, the US State Department, the US Treasury Department and USAID. He has completed projects in 23 countries. The analytical framework he contributed to the World Bank’s Asian Miracle study, 1993, was part of the effort to put institutions on the development agenda. While at the ADB as chief advisor on governance, he was the principal author of the ADB’s Board-approved governance policy. He presided over a committee on governance indicators at the OECD and initiated the restructuring of the Sri Lanka civil service as an advisor to President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. He was one of the principal contributors to the design of the Millenium Challenge Account of the Bush administration.

As an academic, he has taught at the University of Michigan, California Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University. Dr. Root has written and lectured extensively, publishing six books and more than 100 articles. He is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal Asia, the International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. He has published and presented in both the English and the French languages and has been translated into many languages including Chinese, Korean and Japanese.

He has been awarded honors for The Key to the East Asian Miracle: Making Shared Growth Credible (with J. Edgardo Campos), which won the 1997 Charles H. Levine Award for best book of the year by the International Political Science Association. The Social Sciences History Association awarded him the 1995 best book prize of its Economic History Section for The Fountain of Privilege: Political Foundations of Markets in Old Regime France and England. From the American Historical Association he received the Chester Higby Prize, 1986, for the best article among those published during the previous two years. He is on the board of a number of organizations and journals including the Open Society Institute, Center for Public Integrity and Review of Pacific Basin Markets and Policies. Dr. Root received his doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1983.



Areas of Research
  • Developing Nations
  • International Development
  • International Economics
  • International Finance
  • North-South Relations and Asian-Pacific Affairs
  • Political Economy of the Design and Implementation of Development Policy Economic Policy Reform

Education
1985 Mellon Post Doctoral Program in Social Sciences
Humanities and Social Science Division
California Institute of Technology

1983 University of Michigan
Ph.D., Economics & History

1980 Université de Dijon, France
Diplôme d’Etudes Avancées, Politics & Law

1977 University of Michigan
Masters, Economics & History

1974 State University of New York at Buffalo, Economics

Areas of Interest
Major Fields: International Economics and Finance, International Economic Policy, Foreign Affairs

Subfields: International development, developing nations, political economy of the design and implementation of development policy, economic policy reform, North-South relations, Asian-Pacific affairs.

Principal Employment
2006- Present  Professor of Public Policy, School of Public Policy, George Mason University

2003- Present   Senior Research Fellow, Claremont Graduate University

2003- Present   Senior Fellow, Milken Institute.

2003- 2006   Freeman Fellow and Visiting Professor of Economics, Pitzer College

2001- 2002   Senior Advisor to Undersecretary Department of the Treasury

1998 – 2001   Director and Senior Fellow, Global Studies, Milken Institute

1992 – 1998   Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

1995 – 1998   Associate Professor of Public Policy, Stanford University

1996 – 1998   Director, Initiative on Economic Growth and Democracy, Hoover Institution

1988 – 1991   Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences, University of Pennsylvania

1985 – 1988   Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania

Advisory and Consulting Services (ongoing)

African Economic Commission of the United Nations

Asian Development Bank (ADB)

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

The World Bank (WB)

Rand Corporation

United Nations Development Program (UNDP)

United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

United States Department of the Treasury

United States Department of State

Selected Works

Books
Alliance Curse: How the U.S. Lost the Third World. Brookings Institution Press, 2008.

Capital & Collusion: Political Logic of Global Economic Development.  Princeton University Press, 2006.

Governing for Prosperity, edited with Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Yale University Press, 2000, Chinese Translation. Renmin Press, 2006.

Small Countries, Big Lessons: Governance and the Rise of East Asia. London: Oxford University Press, 1996

The Key to the East Asian Miracle: Making Shared Growth Credible, co-authored with J. Edgardo Campos. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1996. Awarded the 1997 Charles H. Levine Award for the best book of the year by the International Political Science Association

Articles
“Judicial Systems and Authoritarian Transition” Root, Hilton and Karen May in Rule By Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes, eds. Tom Ginsburg and Tamir Moustafa, Cambridge University Press, 2008.

“Walking with the Devil: The Commitment Trap in U.S. Foreign Policy" The National Interest, Number 88, Mar/Apr 2007:42-46.

“Opening the Doors of Invention: Technology, Institutions and Developing Nations” forthcoming. International Public Management Review. February 2006.

“Making Infrastructure Work for Poor: A concept paper on Infrastructure and Governance.”     2005.   UNDP. DEVINFRA.Org: A Website for Infrastructure Development    http://www.devinfra.org/subcontent.asp?id=26

“Pakistan: The Political Economy of State Failure” The Milken Institute Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp 64-74, 2005.

“Do U. S. Deficits Threaten Global Financial Stability” YaleGlobal Online, October 13, 2004, reprinted Singapore Straits Times, October 15, 2004 and La Vanguardia, November 1, 2004, “Amenaza el deficit estadounidense la establidad financiera mundial?” p 7.

“Bush Administration Financial Policies in Asia” in George W. Bush and Asia: A Mid-Term Assessment, eds. Robert M. Hathaway and Wilson Lee, Woodrow Wilson International Center, pp. 91-101, 2003.

“Which Path for East Asia?” Washington Post, August 16, 2002. The International Herald Tribune, August17, 2002

“The Political Roots of Poverty: The Economic Logic of Autocracy” with Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. National Interest, Summer 2002, p. 27-37

“Growth Requires Economic Policy Reform; Humanitarian Aid Isn’t Enough” International Herald Tribune, March 21, 2002

“What Can Democracy Do For East Asia,” Journal of Democracy, January 2002, p.113-126

“Public Administration Reform in Sri Lanka”.  International Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 24, Number 12, December 2001, pp.1357-1379

“The Sociology of the State.” International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, editor Raymond Boudon, Elsevier Science Limited, Oxford, U.K. 2001

“Invisible Hand: A Thirst for Funds Drives Change”, The Asian Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2001

“How to Get Ahead Again”, The 5th Column, Far Eastern Economic Review, April 26, 2001, p.31

“What A Way To Reform: Indonesia is Inching Towards Political and Economic Change” The International Economy, March-April, 2001, pp. 32-35

“Do Strong Governments Produce Strong Economies?” The Independent Review, Volume V, Number 4, pp. 565-573, Spring 2001

“East Asia’s Bad Old Ways: Reforming Business by Reforming the Environment” Foreign Affairs, March 2001, pp. 1-5

“Thailand Moving Forward Into the Past”, Wall Street Journal Asian edition, February 8, 2001Curse

“Choosing the Right Financial System for Growth,” with James R. Barth, Daniel E. Nolle and Glenn Yago. Journal of Applied Corporate Finance. Winter 2001, pp. 8-15

Books
Root, H. L. Alliance Curse: How the U.S. Lost the Third World. Washington, DC: Brookings Press, 2008.

Root, H. L. Capital & Collusion: Political Logic of Global Economic Development, Korean Translation. Korea: Best Literacy & Rights Agency, 2008.

Root, H. L. Capital & Collusion: Political Logic of Global Economic Development. Princeton University Press, 2006.

Root, H. L., and B. Bueno de Mesquita. Governing for Prosperity. Yale University Press, 2000, Chinese Translation. Renmin Press, 2006.

Book Sections
Root, H. L. and May, K. “Judicial Systems and Authoritarian Transition.” In Rule By Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes, edited by T. Ginsburg and T. Moustafa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Journal Articles
Root, H. L. “Walking with the Devil: The Commitment Trap in U.S. Foreign Policy." The National Interest, Number 88, (Mar/Apr 2007): 42-46.

Root, H. L. "Opening the Doors of Invention: Institutions, Technology and Developing Nations." International Public Management Review 7(1) (2006): 14-29.

Root, H. L. “Pakistan: The Political Economy of State Failure.” The Milken Institute Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, (2005): 64-74.


Quick Facts

Ranked, by the National Science Foundation, as the number one program in its field for federal and total research expenditures.

Faculty have received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and are Fulbright Scholars and Mellon Fellowship recipients.

In 2007 and 2008, The School’s 45 faculty produced 21 books, 61 book chapters, 14 edited volumes, and 75 refereed journal articles.

For 2007 and 2008 The School’s sponsored research expenditures totaled $17 million, faculty submitted 179 proposals, and The School supported 43 doctoral students.

Research per full-time faculty member for FY 07-08 totaled $123,030, making SPP among the largest funded in the university.

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