Information

Personalborn in 1943 in the United States.

EducationPh.D. in Economics at Harvard University.

Academic AppointmentsPhilip H. Knight Professor Emeritus of Management in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Fellow of the Econometric Society.

Prior AppointmentsDean of the Stanford Business School (1990 - 1999). Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University (1984 - 1990).

Research Field

Prof. Spence is a world authority on growth in developing countries and on the convergence between advanced and developing economies. Prof. Spence's research focuses on economic policy in emerging markets, the economics of information, and the impact of leadership on economic growth. He is famous for his job-market signaling model, which essentially triggered the enormous volume of literature in this branch of contract theory. He pioneered the concept of "market signal" to explain how information is transmitted in the market, its effectiveness and its impact on market behavior, thus laying a solid foundation for the extension of asymmetric information. Prof. Spence's research highlights the vital role of information in contemporary economy and society.