Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs and director of the Economic and Political Development Concentration. He is also co-President of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue and Member of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. He has occupied numerous positions at the United Nations and in his native Colombia, including United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Minister of Finance, Minister of Agriculture and Director of the National Planning Office of Colombia, as well as Member of the Board of Banco de la República, Colombia’s central bank. In 2015–2016, he was also the head of Colombia’s Rural Development Commission. He has received numerous academic distinctions, including the 2012 Jaume Vicens Vives award of the Spanish Association of Economic History for the best book on Spanish or Latin American economic history, the 2008 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought and the 1988 Alejandro Ángel Escobar National Science Award of Colombia. He has published extensively on macroeconomic theory and policy, international financial issues, economic and social development, international trade and Colombian and Latin American economic history.
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