Jan Švejnar
Professor of Economics, CERGE-EI & Columbia University
Jan Švejnar is a Czech-American economist renowned for his work in labor economics, economic transitions, and global economic governance. He earned a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, and completed an M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics at Princeton University. Švejnar has held professorships at Cornell, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Michigan, and, since 2012, Columbia University. There, he serves as Richard N. Gardner Professor of Economics and International Affairs and Director of the Center on Global Economic Governance (CGEG). He co-founded CERGE-EI, a graduate-education and research center in Prague under Charles University and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Švejnar has authored many works on labor markets, corporate and national governance, privatization, foreign investment, and innovation, shaping both academic debate and public-policy decisions. He was previously economic advisor to Václav Havel (1994–2002), and was the co-author of a key 1989 study guiding the post-Communist economic transition of what was then Czechoslovakia. Throughout his career, Švejnar has been honored with several awards including the Neuron Prize for lifetime achievement (2012), the IZA Prize in Labor Economics (2015), and in 2024, the Medal of Merit from the President of the Czech Republic.