Web Bio Page

Cornell Graduate Field Memberships: Economics; Applied Economics and Management; Policy Analysis and Management; International Development; and Nutrition.

The economics of health, nutrition, and education in developing countries; poverty and inequality; the evaluation of government policy and programs.

David E. Sahn is an International Professor of Economics in the Division of Nutritional Sciences and the Department of Economics. He has a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Masters of Public Health from the University of Michigan. His main academic interest is analyzing the determinants of, and solutions to poverty, food insecurity, malnutrition, and disease in developing countries. In addition to teaching and mentoring of graduate students, he devotes considerable efforts to training and capacity building of research institutions in Africa and working with government officials and international organizations to integrate research findings into policy. Before coming to Cornell in 1988, Professor Sahn was an Economist at the World Bank, and prior to that, a Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. He has been a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund, a visiting researcher at both the Département et Laboratoire d’Economie Théorique et Appliquée, École Normale Superieure (DELTA) and Laboratoire d’Économie Appliquée de Paris, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Paris, and a visiting professor at Kenyatta University in Nairobi. He has also worked extensively with numerous international organizations, such as OECD and several UN agencies such as UNICEF, the UN Development Program, the Food and Agricultural Organization, and the World Health Organization in Asia, Africa and transition economies in Eastern Europe. Dr. Sahn has a long list, numbering over 100, of peer-reviewed books, chapters, and journal articles dealing with issues of poverty, inequality, education, health, and related economic and social policy. This body of literature includes both research focused on the impact of economic policy on household welfare, such as his widely cited books on the impact of economic reforms in Africa, Structural Adjustment Reconsidered (Cambridge University Press) and Economic Reform and the Poor in Africa (Oxford University Press), as well as numerous publications that focus on the production of human capital outcomes, particularly in the areas of health, nutrition and education. This includes recent publications such as, “Are Africans Practicing Safer Sex: Evidence from Demographic and Health Surveys for Eight Countries,” forthcoming in the Economic Development and Cultural Change; “Cognitive Skills among Children in Senegal: Disentangling the Roles of Schooling and Family Background,” forthcoming in the Economics of Education Review; “Living Standards in Africa” to be published in 2008 as a chapter in the volume, Debates in the Measurement of Global Inequality by Oxford University Press; “The Joint Demand for Health Care, Leisure, and Commodities: Implications for Health Care Finance and Access in Vietnam,” in Journal of Development Studies (2007); “Estimating the Consequences of Unintended Fertility for Child Health and Education in Romania: An Analysis Using Twins Data,” in Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics (2007); and “Changes in HIV/AIDS Knowledge And Testing Behavior In Africa: How Much and for Whom?” in Journal of Population Economics. He also has considerable experience in managing complex collaborative research and training projects, as well as serving as the director of the Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program and the director of the Strategies and Analysis for Growth and Access (SAGA) research project.

1984 Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts

1976 Master of Public Health, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan

1975 Bachelor of General Studies, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan

Administrative responsibilities include directing a large research effort examining the impact of economic reform on poverty in 10 African countries; and operating a collaborative research and training program for African scholars, funded by the African Economic Research Consortium, to examine the nature and determinants of poverty and approaches to raise household incomes. In addition, as Director of the Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program, I manage a large number of externally funded research, training and technical assistance projects.