Dr. Louise Fox is USAID’s Chief Economist. In this role, she guides the Agency on economics-based decision making and is responsible for keeping USAID’s economists on the cutting edge of ideas in development economics.

Before joining USAID, Dr. Fox served as a Visiting Professor of Development Economic Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and as a consultant in development economics, specializing in employment, labor markets, gender, social service delivery and poverty reduction. Prior to joining UC Berkeley, Dr. Fox had a distinguished career at the World Bank where she advised governments in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe on how to develop, implement, and evaluate effective policies for employment, social security and poverty reduction.

Her most recent published work has been on the topics of poverty reduction and inclusive growth, the political economy of poverty reduction, and on employment, labor markets, and labor regulation, all with respect to Sub-Saharan Africa. She has also published in the areas of pension reform, reform of child welfare systems, social protection, public expenditures in the social sectors and poverty reduction, female-headed households and child welfare, stabilization policies and poverty reduction, the social costs of adjustment, and the economic history of poverty and inequality in Brazil. Her most recent book is Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa, published by the World Bank in 2014.

Dr. Fox received a bachelor’s degree in international relations and affairs from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt University.