Andrei Shleifer is a Russian-American economist and Professor of Economics at Harvard University, a position he has held since 1991. He was honored with the biennial John Bates Clark Medal in 1999 for his significant contributions across corporate finance, the economics of financial markets, and the economics of transition. His influence in the field is further highlighted by IDEAS/RePEc, which ranked him as the second top economist globally in 2011 and the top economist in 2024.