Karla Hoff

Karla Hoff is Co-Director of the World Development Report 2015 on Mind, Society, and Behavior and a Senior Research Economist at the World Bank. Most of her work has been on the social determinants of behavior (for example, low trust or stigmatized identities). She has published papers in the American Economic Review that explain how inefficient neighborhoods emerge with the segregation between renters and homeowners; how stigmatised social identities impede cognitive performance and can make false stereotypes that a group is inferior appear true; and how Big Bang privatisation in Russia led to a political environment reflecting the interests of asset-strippers that impeded the demand for the rule of law. She won an award for one of the top 50 papers in 2009 for “Exiting a Lawless State,” co-authored with Joseph Stiglitz. She coedited The Economics of Rural Organization and Poverty Traps. Her work spans conceptual analysis and grassroots fieldwork. A current project is to evaluate a Theater for Development program in India. She has a PhD in economics from Princeton.