Carol Graham Ph.D.

Carol Graham, Ph.D., is Interim Vice President and Director of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, College Park Professor at the University of Maryland, and a Senior Scientist at Gallup. Her books include The Power of Hope: How Wellbeing Science Can Save Us from Despair (Princeton, 2023); Happiness for All?: Unequal Lives and Hopes in Pursuit of the American Dream (Princeton University Press, 2017); The Pursuit of Happiness: An Economy of Well-Being (Brookings, 2011; published in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean); Happiness around the World: The Paradox of Happy Peasants and Miserable Millionaires (Oxford University Press, 2009; published in Chinese and Portuguese): Happiness and Hardship: Opportunity and Insecurity in New Market Economies (with Stefano Pettinato, Brookings, 2002; published in Spanish); Private Markets for Public Goods: Raising the Stakes in Economic Reform (Brookings, 1998); Safety Nets, Politics, and the Poor: Transitions to Market Economies (Brookings, 1994); Peru's APRA (Rienner, 1992); Improving the Odds: Political Strategies for Institutional Reform in Latin America (co-author, IDB, 1999); and A Half Penny on the Dollar: The Future of Development Aid, with Michael O'Hanlon (Brookings, 1997). She is the editor, with Eduardo Lora, of Paradox and Perceptions: Quality of
Life in Latin America (Brookings, 2009) and, with Nancy Birdsall, of New Markets, New Opportunities?: Economic and Social Mobility in a Changing World (Brookings, 1999), and Beyond Trade-Offs: Market Reforms and Equitable Growth in Latin America (Brookings/IDB, 1988).

Graham is senior editor of Behavioral Science and Policy, an associate editor at the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and is on the editorial boards of numerous other economic journals. She served on a National Academy of Sciences panel on well-being metrics and policy in 2012-13, and received Pioneer Awards from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2017 and 2021, as well as a Lifetime Distinguished Scholar award from the International Society of Quality of Life Studies in 2018. She served as Vice President and Director of Governance Studies at Brookings from 2002-2004; and as a Special Advisor to the Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. She has been a consultant at the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the Harvard Institute for International Development, helping to design safety net programs in Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. She has also testified in Congress several times.

Her research has received support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the World Bank, and the Tinker, Hewlett, and Templeton Foundations among others. She held a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship in 1997-98, during which time she served as Special Adviser to the Executive Vice President of the Inter-American Development Bank.

Graham, born in Lima, Peru, has an A.B. from Princeton University, an M.A. from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a Ph.D. from Oxford University.