2026 Nancy Birdsall: Political Science Researcher – H-Index, Publications & Awards

Discipline name	D-Index	World Ranking	Current World Ranking	National Ranking	Current National Ranking	Publications	Citations
Political Science	66	75	64	45	36	255	17140
Economics and Finance	66	571	516	368	325	243	17111

Research.com Recognitions

2023 - Research.com Political Science in United States Leader Award

Overview

Nancy Birdsall is affiliated with the Center for Global Development in the United States. Their research spans several interconnected fields within health professions, with particular attention to issues related to nutrition, dietetics, and the health impacts of conflict.

Their main fields of study include:

Health Professions

Within these fields, subfields of specialization include:

General Health Professions
Nutrition and Dietetics

Key topics addressed in their research are:

Health and Conflict Studies
Child Nutrition and Water Access
Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations

Nancy Birdsall has contributed to several academic publications. Notable recent papers include:

"The impact of civil conflict on infant and child malnutrition, Nigeria, 2013" (2020), published in Maternal and Child Nutrition
"Global headwinds to Kuznets' low-inequality transformation? Plutocrats, populism, and more" (2025), published in the Working Paper Series
"The World Bank's East Asian Miracle: Too Much a Product of Its Time?" (2025), published in The Journal of Economic Perspectives

Frequent co-authors collaborating with Nancy Birdsall include:

Embry Howell
Timothy Waidmann
Nikhil Holla
Kevin Jiang

Their work appears in several academic venues with the following frequency:

Maternal and Child Nutrition (1 publication)
Working Paper Series (1 publication)
The Journal of Economic Perspectives (1 publication)

Best Publications

Trade Policy and Industrial Pollution in Latin America: Where Are the Pollution Havens?

Nancy Birdsall;David Wheeler

1087
Citations
Inequality and Growth Reconsidered: Lessons from East Asia

Nancy Birdsall;David Ross;Richard Sabot

1026
Citations
Population Matters: Demographic Change, Economic Growth, and Poverty in the Developing World

Nancy Birdsall;Allen C. Kelley;Steven Sinding

911
Citations
Asset Inequality Matters: An Assessment of the World Bank's Approach to Poverty Reduction.

Nancy Birdsall;Juan Luis Londono

902
Citations
Financing Health Services in Developing Countries: An Agenda for Reform

Akin J;Birdsall N;de Ferranti D

572
Citations
Winners and Losers: Assessing the Distributional Impact of Privatization

Nancy Birdsall;John Nellis

496
Citations
Stuck in Tunnel: Is Globalization Muddling the Middle?

Nancy Birdsall;Carol Graham;Carol Graham;Stefano Pettinato;Stefano Pettinato

438
Citations
Economic approaches to population growth

Nancy Birdsall

399
Citations
The (Indispensable) Middle Class in Developing Countries; or, The Rich and the Rest, Not the Poor and the Rest

Nancy Birdsall

382
Citations
Reinventing foreign aid

William Russell Easterly;Nancy Birdsall

342
Citations
Towards Universal Primary Education: Investments, Incentives, and Institutions.

Nancy Birdsall;Ruth Levine;Amina Ibrahim

340
Citations
Public spending on higher education in developing countries: Too much or too little?

Nancy Birdsall

301
Citations
Economics Reform and Wage Differentials in Latin America

Miguel Székely;Nancy Birdsall;Jere R. Behrman

295
Citations
How to Help Poor Countries

Nancy Birdsall;Dani Rodrik;Arvind Subramanian

284
Citations
Cash on Delivery: A New Approach to Foreign Aid

William D. Savedoff;Nancy Birdsall

266
Citations
Saving Iraq From Its Oil

Nancy Birdsall;Arvind Subramanian

241
Citations
Washington Contentious: Economic Policies for Social Equity in Latin America

Nancy Birdsall;Rachel Menezes

218
Citations
Do No Harm: Aid, Weak Institutions, and the Missing Middle in Africa

Nancy Birdsall

216
Citations
Opportunity Foregone: Education in Brazil.

Nancy Birdsall;Richard H. Sabot

216
Citations
Delivering on Debt Relief: From IMF Gold to a New Aid Architecture

Nancy Birdsall;John Williamson;Brian Deese

213
Citations
Public inputs and child schooling in Brazil

Nancy M. Birdsall

210
Citations
Policy Selectivity Forgone: Debt and Donor Behaviour in Africa

Nancy Birdsall;Stijn Claessens;Ishac Diwan

204
Citations
Commission on Growth and Development

Paul Collier;Steven Durlauf;Nancy Birdsall;Rogerio Werneck

183
Citations
Investing in Development A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals : Overview

Jeffrey D. Sachs;Agnes Binagwaho;Nancy Birdsall;Jaap Broekmans

171
Citations
Quality of Official Development Assistance Assessment.

Birdsall N;Kharas H;Mahgoub A;Perakis R

162
Citations
Social development is economic development

Nancy Birdsall

159
Citations
Policy Selectivity Forgone: Debt and Donor Behavior in Africa

Nancy Birdsall;Stijn Claessens;Ishac Diwan

130
Citations
Bootstraps Not Band-Aids: Poverty, Equity and Social Policy

Nancy Birdsall;Miguel Szekely

103
Citations
Why Inequality Matters: Some Economic Issues

Nancy Birdsall

96
Citations
Rising inequality in the new global economy

Nancy Birdsall

92
Citations
The Post-Washington Consensus

Nancy Birdsall;Francis Fukuyama

71
Citations
After the crisis : the social contract and the middle class in East Asia

Nancy Birdsall;Stephan Haggard

57
Citations
Multilateral development banking for this century’s development challenges: five recommendations to shareholders of the old and new multilateral development banks

Montek Singh Ahluwalia;Lawrence Summers;Andres Velasco;Nancy Birdsall

43
Citations
Does the Rise of the Middle Class Lock in Good Government in the Developing World

Nancy Birdsall

43
Citations
Will HIPC Matter? The Debt Game and Donor Behaviour in Africa

Nancy Birdsall;Stijn Claessens;Ishac Diwan;Ishac Diwan

26
Citations
Distributive Justice and Economic Development: The Case of Chile and Developing Countries

Andrés Solimano;Eduardo Aninat;Nancy Birdsall

23
Citations
The Washington Consensus: Assessing a Damaged Brand - Working Paper 213

Nancy Birdsall

3
Citations
How should Tanzania use its natural gas? Citizens’ views from a nationwide Deliberative Poll

Nancy Birdsall;James Fishkin;Faraz Haqqi

1
Citations

Frequent Co-Authors

Jere R. Behrman University of Pennsylvania

Nora Lustig Tulane University

Arvind Subramanian Center for Global Development

Carol Graham Brookings Institution

Francis Fukuyama Stanford University

Dani Rodrik Harvard University

Stijn Claessens Yale University

Anil B. Deolalikar University of California, Riverside

Ruth E. Levine The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston

John S. Akin University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

External Links

Wikipedia of Nancy Birdsall Personal website of Nancy Birdsall Google Scholar page

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