I am interested in behavioral economics broadly defined to include the effect of culture on how individuals see the world around them, how they think, and what they want. I co-directed the World Bank’s World Development Report 2015: Mind, Society, and Behavior, the first synthesis of applications of behavioral economics to economic development. Since I retired from the World Bank in 2020, I have taught behavioral development economics at Columbia University. I have a forthcoming book called The Other Invisible Hand: How Culture Changes Us and the Societies We Create. The book draws on the wave of micro-studies in the 21st century that quantify the impact, through changes in culture, of events on social and economic change. The book explains why there are systematic differences across groups in the willingness to cooperate, to sanction norm violators, to invest in the future, and to feel empathy for others. The title The Other Invisible Hand is a reference to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.” The other invisible hand is culture—the concepts, categories, narratives, and simple theories of how the world works through which we process information. The fact that people in the same society see so much through the same lens can make it easier for them to cooperate and reap the gains that such cooperation entails. But even more than the invisible hand of markets, this other invisible hand is often flawed, leading some societies into dysfunctional behaviors that impede their ability to enjoy shared prosperity. My work spans conceptual analysis and grassroots fieldwork and has been published in the American Economic Review and many other journals. I co-edited The Economics of Rural Organization and Poverty Traps. I was a National Merit Scholar and earned a PhD in economics from Princeton University.

Selected Publications

Twenty-first century insights into economic development: Cultural Roots of Cognition
A. Demeritt, K. Hoff

“‘Small Miracles’—Behavioral Insights to Improve Development Policy: The World Development Report 2015”
A. Demeritt, K. Hoff
In: Contemporary Issues in Development Economics, edited by Timothy Besley, 2015. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 3, 19-43

INTRODUCTION: TASTES, CASTES AND CULTURE: THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIETY ON PREFERENCES
E. Fehr, K. Hoff

USING BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS TO REDUCE POVERTY AND OPPRESSION
A. Demeritt, K. Hoff

Stiglitz, Joseph E. (born 1943)
K. Hoff

The Third Function of Law Is to Transform Cultural Categories

K. Hoff, J. Walsh

In K. Basu, R. Hockett (eds), Law, Economics, and Conflict,
Cornell University Press, 2021, pp. 55-85 (in press).

Lab-in-the-field Experiments: Insights into Discrimination and Ways to Reduce It

A. Demeritt, K. Hoff

The Handbook on Economics of Discrimination and Affirmative Action, A. Deshpande (ed.), Springer.

Cultural Impediments to Learning to Cooperate: An Experimental Study of High- and Low-Caste Men in Rural India

B. Brooks, K. Hoff, P. Pandey

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2018) 115 (45): 11385-11392.

Striving for Balance in Economics: Towards a Theory of the Social Determination of Behavior

K. Hoff, J.E. Stiglitz

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2016) 126B, 25-57.

Making Up People: The Effect of Identity on Performance in a Modernizing Society

K. Hoff, P. Pandey

Journal of Development Economics (2014) 106: 108-131

Caste and Punishment: The Legacy of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement

K. Hoff, M. Kshetramade, E. Fehr

Economic Journal (2011) 121: F449-475

Equilibrium Fictions: A Cognitive Approach to Societal Rigidity

K Hoff, JE Stiglitz

American Economic Review (2010) 100 (2). 141-146.

Online appendix

Exiting a Lawless State

K. Hoff, J.E. Stiglitz

Economic Journal (2008) 118: 1474-1497.

Discrimination, Social Identity, and Durable Inequalities

K. Hoff, P. Pandey

American Economic Review (2006) 96(2), 206-211.

The Kin System as a Poverty Trap?

K. Hoff, A. Sen

Poverty Traps (eds. Bowles, Durlauf, Hoff) (Princeton U Press, 2006) 96-115.

Homeownership, Community Interactions, and Segregation

K. Hoff, A. Sen

American Economic Review (2005) 95(4), 11167-1185.

After the Big Bang? Obstacles to the Emergence of the Rule of Law in Post-Communist Societies

K. Hoff, J.E. Stiglitz

American Economic Review (2004) 94(3) 753-763.

Paths of Institutional Development: A View from Economic History

K. Hoff

World Bank Research Observer (2003) 18(2) 205-226.

Modern Economic Theory and Development

K. Hoff, J.E. Stiglitz

Frontiers of Development Economics, eds. G. Meier and J.E. Stiglitz, Oxford U Press (2001), 389-459

Beyond Rosenstein-Rodan: The Modern Theory of Coordination Problems in Development

K. Hoff

Proceedings of the Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics 2000 (2001): 145-188.

Edited Books

Poverty Traps (with S. Bowles and S. Durlauf), Princeton University Press, 2006 (paperback edition, 2016).

The Economics of Rural Organization: Theory, Practice, and Policy (with A. Braverman and J.E. Stiglitz), Oxford University Press, 1993.

Work in Progress