Welcome
JEAN-PAUL CARVALHO
Professor of Political Economy
University of Oxford
Bio
Jean-Paul Carvalho is Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Economics at the University of Oxford, Fellow of New College, and Director of Oxford Elevate.
His research examines the institutional drivers of economic performance. He is known for his contributions to the economics of social institutions, demonstrating how norms, culture, identity, and religion affect economic development, social conflict, and political dysfunction. His work has addressed critical challenges, including the political-economic risks of AI, economic integration by cultural minorities, and counter-radicalization.
Professor Carvalho is Associate Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Fellow of the Royal Economic Society, and convenor of the Political Economy group at Oxford. Previously, he held positions at UC Irvine, where he directed the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences (2017–2019), and was a visiting scholar at Harvard, Stanford, NYU, and Warwick. He was educated at Oxford (Monash Scholar) and the University of Western Australia.
What’s New
Q5 x Prospect Panel on AI
WERD Talk: The Political and Economic Risks of AI
Coverage of work on AI in Forbes Africa
Working Papers
The Political-Economic Risks of AI
Department of Economics Discussion Paper Series
Zero-Sum Environments, the Evolution of Effort-Suppressing Beliefs, and Economic Development
with Augustin Bergeron, Joseph Henrich, Nathan Nunn, Jonathan Weigel Revise and resubmit, Review of Economic Studies
Publications
Modeling Social Institutions
Forthcoming in The Handbook of Culture and Economic Behavior, Eds. Ben Enke, Paola Giuliano, Nathan Nunn, and Leonard Wantchekon
Intersectionality: Affirmative Action with Multidimensional Identities
with Bary Pradelski and Cole Williams
Management Science 71(5), 2025, 4495-4509.
[working paper version]
The Representation Dynamic and the ‘Normalization’ of Group Differences
with Bary Pradelski
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 41(3), 2025, 996-1024.
[working paper version]
Resisting Education
with Mark Koyama and Cole Williams
Journal of the European Economic Association 22(6), 2024, 2549-2597.
[working paper version]
Radicalisation
with Michael Sacks
The Economic Journal 134(659), 2024, 1019-1068.
[working paper version]
Failed Secular Revolutions: Religious Belief, Competition, and Extremism
with Jared Rubin and Michael Sacks
Public Choice, 2023.
[working paper version]
Cultural Transmission and Religion
with Alberto Bisin and Thierry Verdier
The Economics of Religion (ed. R. Sauer), 2023. World Scientific.
Identity and Underrepresentation: Interactions between Race and Gender
with Bary Pradelski
Journal of Public Economics 216, 2022.
[working paper version]
Markets and Communities: The Social Cost of the Meritocracy
Journal of Institutional Economics 18(3), 2022, 501-519.
[working paper version]
The Formation of Religious Beliefs and Preferences
with Michael McBride
Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics (ed. K.F. Zimmerman), 2022, Springer.
The Economics of Religious Communities
with Michael Sacks
Journal of Public Economics 201, 2021.
[working paper version]
Elite Identity and Political Accountability: A Tale of Ten Islands
with Christian Dippel
The Economic Journal 130, 2020, 1995–2029.
[Online Appendix]
Religion and Terrorism: The Religious Utility Hypothesis
Handbook of the Economics of Terrorism (eds. A. Basuchoudhary and G. Schulze), forthcoming, Cambridge University Press.
Sacrifice and Sorting in Clubs
Forum for Social Economics 49(4), 2020, 357-369.
[working paper version]
Religious Clubs: The Strategic Role of Religious Identity
Advances in the Economics of Religion (eds: Carvalho, Iyer and Rubin), 2019, Palgrave.
Education, Social Mobility and Religious Movements: The Islamic Revival in Egypt
with Christine Binzel
The Economic Journal 127, 2017, 2553-2580.
[working paper version] [Online Appendix]
Coordination and Culture
Economic Theory 64(3), 2017, 449–475 .
[working paper version]
Education, Identity and Community: Lessons from Jewish Emancipation
with Mark Koyama and Michael Sacks
Public Choice 171(1), 2017, 119–143.
[working paper version]
Jewish Emancipation and Schism: Economic Development and Religious Change
with Mark Koyama
Journal of Comparative Economics 44(3), 2016, 562-584.
[working paper version]
Identity-Based Organizations
American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 106(5), 2016, 410–414.
[working paper version]
Veiling
Quarterly Journal of Economics 128(1), 2013, 337-370.
Instincts and Institutions: The Rise of the Market
with Mark Koyama
Advances in Austrian Economics 13, 2010, 285-309.
Other & Books/Edited Volumes
Other
Intersectional Affirmative Action
with Bary Pradelski and Cole Williams
VoxEU, 16 November 2022 .
The Paths to Narrow Identities: A Comment on Dasgupta and Goyal’s ‘Narrow Identities’
Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 14(2), 2022, 77–86.
[working paper version]
‘What Should an Economist Know?’
IEA World Congress, July 2021
Norms of Identity
Slides from the ERINN Social Norms Workshop, Nuffield College Oxford, June 2019
An Interview with Thomas Schelling
Oxonomics, May 2007
Books/Edited Volumes
Advances in the Economics of Religion
Co-edited with Sriya Iyer and Jared Rubin
Palgrave 2019.
Teachings
Course in Evolution and Learning in Games
Lectures
- The Rational Agent and Its Limitations
- The Interactive Knowledge Problem
- Social Learning
- Evolution in Games
- Learning Protocols
- Deterministic Dynamics
- Evolutionary Stability
- Local Stability
- Cultural Transmission
- Stochastic Dynamics
- Stochastic Stability
- Emergence of Segregation
- Adaptive Play
- Bargaining Conventions
- Games Played on Networks
- Heterogeneous Agents
- Fast Convergence
Honors & Awards
Fellow of the Royal Economic Society, 2025
Shortlisted for Vice-Chancellor’s Award, University of Oxford, 2025
Outstanding Teaching Award, UC Irvine, Spring 2020
School of Social Sciences Dean’s Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching, UC Irvine, 2017
Journal of the European Economic Association Excellence in Refereeing Award, 2017 Outstanding Author Contribution Award for “Instincts and Institutions: The Rise of the Market”, Emerald Literati Network, 2011
One of three UK or UK-based Economists selected for Young Talent Session, Royal Economic
Society Annual Conference, 2011
Robert Solow Fellowship, Cournot Centre for Economic Studies, Paris, 2009-10
Humane Studies Fellowship, Institute for Humane Studies, 2007-9
Webb Medley MPhil Thesis Prize proxime accessit, 2006
John Monash Scholarship, 2004-7
Australian Postgraduate Award, 2001-4
Resource Finance Corporation Prize for best honors student in Finance, 2000
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