About Me
Dany Bahar is an Israeli and Venezuelan economist. He is currently a Senior Fellow and Director of the Migration Program at the Center for Global Development, a Washington DC think tank. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.
He is affiliated with Brown University's Watson School of International and Public Affairs, where he has served as Professor of Practice, and is a member of The Growth Lab at Harvard, as well as other international research networks.
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My grandparents' wedding, Caracas, October 1949
I was born in Caracas, Venezuela, to a family of Holocaust survivors originally from Yugoslavia and Poland who found refuge in Caracas in the 1940s.
Their journey—from persecution to survival and then to rebuilding a life in a new land—profoundly shaped my identity, how I see the world, and ultimately, my research.
Born and raised in Caracas, I earned my first degree in Systems Engineering from Universidad Metropolitana.
Growing up, Venezuela was one of the wealthiest countries in the region—a place that had opened its arms to immigrants from post-war Europe and across Latin America. Newcomers drove growth in academia, science, arts, and business, making it a poster child of immigrant integration.
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View of Caracas from my grandparents' home
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Photo taken by me during a research visit
After college I immigrated to Israel—experiencing firsthand the challenges of starting over in a new country: navigating bureaucracy, learning a new language, and building networks from scratch.
It was there that I pivoted from engineering to the social sciences, earning an MA in Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
I witnessed how Israel's absorption of one million Soviet Jews in the 1990s—20% of its population—helped fuel its rise as a hi-tech startup nation, shaping my understanding of how human capital drives national prosperity.
After completing my MA, I moved to the United States to pursue graduate studies at Harvard University.
There I first earned an MPA in International Development from the Kennedy School, and after that a PhD in Public Policy.
It was as a doctoral student where I developed the research questions that would define my career: that the international diffusion of productive knowledge is most effectively achieved through the movement of people.
PhD graduation, Harvard, 2014
Bahar presenting at the plenarium of the 49th OAS General Assembly, Medellín, 2019, alongside OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro
My career has spanned multilateral development banks, think tanks, and Ivy League universities—always at the intersection of rigorous research and real-world policy impact.
I've worked for the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank, was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and in 2019 served on an OAS task force on the Venezuelan migration crisis.
My academic work appears in top economics journals, and I regularly contribute to leading media outlets around the globe.
Translating evidence into policy is what drives my work.
I've been fortunate that my research has informed policy discussions at the highest levels—from government ministries to international summits.
It's a privilege when rigorous evidence can contribute to decisions affecting millions of lives.
I continue to pursue research and policy work driven by what I believe is the most important question in economics: why are some countries rich while others remain poor?
Through my research I've come to understand that human mobility holds much of the answer—and if so, this has profound practical implications for policy in today's world.
Read my full research statement