Finn Tarp is Director of the UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) in Helsinki, Finland. He also holds the Chair of Professor of Development Economics at the Department of Economics at the University of Copenhagen, where he completed his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in economics. He received the Zeuthen award of the Danish Economic Society (Socialøkonomisk Samfund) for an academic article based on the thesis Growth and Income Distribution in Developing Countries.

Professor Tarp has some 30 years of experience in academic and applied development economics research and teaching. His field experience covers numerous countries across Africa and the developing world more generally, including longer term assignments in Swaziland (two years), Mozambique (eight years) and Vietnam (three years). He is a leading international expert on issues of development strategy and foreign aid, with an interest in poverty, income distribution and growth, micro- and macroeconomic policy and modeling, agricultural sector policy and planning, household and enterprise development, and economic adjustment and reform. In addition to his university positions, Finn Tarp has held senior posts and advisory positions within government and with donor organizations, and he is member of a large number of international committees and advisory bodies. They include the European Union Development Network and the African Economic Research Consortium.