Served as the Chairman of an Independent Commission on Growth in Developing Countries (2006-2010) He was Professor Emeritus of Management and former Dean (1990-1999) in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford In 2001, Spence received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. He is the author of the book, “The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World,” Ferrar, Straus and Giroux, May 2011.
He is the chairman of the academic council of the Fung Global Institute. Spence serves on the boards of Genpact and Mercadolibre, and a number of private companies. He is a member of the board of the Stanford Management Company, and the International Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation. He is a Senior Advisor to Oak Hill Investment Management and a consultant to PIMCO. Spence was awarded the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize for excellence in teaching and the John Bates Clark medal for a “significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge.” From 1984 to 1990, Spence served as the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. Spence holds a BA in philosophy from Princeton University (1966), a BA/MA in mathematics from Oxford University (1968), and a PhD in Economics from Harvard University (1972).