The department is a lively community that is recognised internationally as one of the top centres for research and teaching in development studies.

Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Douglas Gollin is Professor of Development Economics at Oxford University, based in the Oxford Department of International Development. His research focuses broadly on economic development and growth, with an emphasis on the structural transformations that accompany the growth process. He has particular interests in agricultural productivity and technology, from a micro scale to macro scale. His work has also looked at rural-urban mobility and urbanisation processes, spatial patterns of development and a range of other topics.
Professor Gollin joined Oxford in October 2012 after spending 16 years on the faculty of Williams College in the United States. He currently serves as Research Director for a major global programme of academic research on Structural Transformation and Economic Growth (STEG), funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office. Professor Gollin is a managing editor of the Journal of African Economies. From 2012-17, he chaired the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA) of the CGIAR and served on the CGIAR Independent Science and Partnership Council. He has also served on the Research Advisory Group for the former UK Department for International Development (DFID).
Professor Gollin holds an AB degree from Harvard University and an MA in international relations from Yale University. He received his PhD in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1996.
He has published in numerous academic journals including Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Science, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Urban Economics, and American Journal of Agricultural Economics. He is a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD).
Doug Gollin teaches on the MSc in Economics for Development and the MPhil in Development Studies.
Doug supervises broadly on areas related to agricultural development, structural transformation, and economic growth. His supervisees use a range of quantitative methods and mixed methods; he is especially interested in work that uses micro data to address macro questions. He welcomes applications from prospective students whose work is firmly grounded in macro/growth economics, contemporary development economics, or development studies. He looks for proposals that show careful thought about concepts and measurement (as opposed to those that use data without close examination of the underlying and embedded assumptions).
He does not generally supervise doctoral research involving large-scale global models, country development strategies, fiscal/monetary policy, cross-country regression analyses, or local case studies.
Agriculture; economic growth; structural transformation; transportation costs; agricultural technology; agricultural research; technological change.