Avner Greif is an economics professor at Stanford University, Stanford, California.

He received his Ph.D. at Northwestern University, 1989. In 1998 he received a 'genius grant' from the MacArthur Foundation.

He specializes in the study of the social institutions that support economic development, and their history, incorporating game theory into his approach to this large subject. Dr. Greif is on the board of trustees of the International Society of New Institutional Economics.

One of his works is Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade. The introduction to this book is available online here.

American economists