Life and career
- 1954 · Born in Detroit. Born on 5 November 1954 in Detroit, Michigan. (Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs)
- 1976 · Harvard years. He graduated summa cum laude in economics from Harvard College in 1976. He took his PhD in 1980 under Martin Feldstein. Harvard gave him tenure at the age of 28. (Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs · IMF Finance & Development: A Project in Every Port (December 2012))
- 1985 · Ending hyperinflation in Bolivia. Bolivia faced annual inflation of about 60,000 percent. As economic adviser he tied the cure to closing the budget gap through higher oil prices. Hyperinflation fell within weeks. He also negotiated the cancellation of most of the country’s external debt. (IMF Finance & Development: A Project in Every Port (December 2012) · Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs · PBS Commanding Heights: Shock therapy)
- 1989 · Poland’s jump to the market. He and David Lipton drafted a transition plan for the Solidarity government. It was folded into the reform programme led by finance minister Leszek Balcerowicz. He was the main architect of Poland’s debt reduction and prices had stabilised by 1991. (IMF Finance & Development: A Project in Every Port (December 2012) · Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs · PBS Commanding Heights: Shock therapy)
- 1991 · Adviser to Russia. He advised the Russian government from December 1991 at the invitation of Yegor Gaidar. He says few of his proposals were adopted. He resigned with Anders Åslund in January 1994. (Jeffrey Sachs: What I did in Russia (2012) · IMF Finance & Development: A Project in Every Port (December 2012))
- 1995 · Development economics at Harvard. He directed the Harvard Institute for International Development from 1995 to 1999. He then chaired the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health from 2000 to 2001. (Columbia University: Jeffrey D. Sachs CV (2022) · Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs)
- 2002 · Earth Institute and the Millennium Project. He moved to Columbia to direct the Earth Institute. Kofi Annan named him special adviser and asked him to direct the UN Millennium Project. Its final report Investing in Development went to Annan in January 2005. (Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs · Columbia University: Jeffrey D. Sachs CV (2022))
- 2005 · The End of Poverty and the Millennium Villages. The End of Poverty became a New York Times bestseller. The same year he launched the Millennium Villages Project in rural Africa. TIME named him to its TIME 100 list in 2004 and 2005. In 2007 India awarded him the Padma Bhushan. (Wikipedia: The End of Poverty · Columbia University: Jeffrey D. Sachs CV (2022) · Sachs: Lessons from the Millennium Villages Project (2018) · Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs)
- 2012 · SDSN and the World Happiness Report. He became director of the new UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and its president in 2019. In 2012 he co-founded the World Happiness Report with John Helliwell and Richard Layard. (Columbia University: Jeffrey D. Sachs CV (2022) · World Happiness Report: About)
- 2015 · The SDG era. He published The Age of Sustainable Development with Columbia University Press. He was consulted on Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’. He also won the Blue Planet Prize that year. (Columbia University Press: The Age of Sustainable Development · Crux via Angelus (4 November 2021) · Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs)
- 2016 · Leaves the Earth Institute. His term as Earth Institute director ended in 2016. He went on to direct Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development. He served as special adviser to António Guterres until 2018. (Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs · Columbia University: Jeffrey D. Sachs CV (2022) · SDSN: Jeffrey Sachs)
- 2020 · Chairs the Lancet COVID-19 Commission. The Lancet appointed him chair of its COVID-19 Commission which launched on 9 July 2020. The final report came out on 15 September 2022. (Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs · SDSN: Lancet COVID-19 Commission)
- 2021 · Pontifical Academy and the Tang Prize. Pope Francis made him a full member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences on 25 October 2021. He had advised the Holy See on economics since John Paul II. In 2022 he received the Tang Prize in Sustainable Development. (Crux via Angelus (4 November 2021) · The Tablet (26 October 2021) · Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs)
- 2026 · India’s rise in Delhi and Varanasi. In April at a FICCI event in New Delhi he said India could become a developed nation by 2047. In June his Sustainable Development Report showed India up 18 places since 2015. On 2 November he co-hosted the World Symposium on Ancient Wisdom for Modern Challenges in Varanasi. He predicted India would be the world’s largest economy by 2100. (The Week / PTI (29 April 2026) · SDSN: Sustainable Development Report 2026 · ANI (1 November 2026) · ANI video (2 November 2026))
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