Eric Verhoogen is Professor of Economics and of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. His primary research area is "firms and development": empirical microeconomic work on firms in developing countries, with a focus on the causes and consequences of upgrading -- technology adoption, product innovation, and quality and productivity improvements. His work has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, the Review of Economic Studies, and other leading journals. He is currently serving as a Research Program Director of the International Growth Centre and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Bureau for Research in the Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD). He holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, a master’s degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.