Rachel M. McCleary is Lecturer, Economics Department, Harvard University, Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution. McCleary’s work is interdisciplinary with theoretical grounding in the fields of philosophy, political science, sociology, and economics. Her research focuses on how religion interacts with economic performance and the political and social behavior of individuals and institutions across societies. McCleary studies how religious beliefs and practices influence productivity, economic growth, and the maintenance of political institutions such as democracy. She also works on moral philosophy regarding moral agency and reasoning.
McCleary has worked on Central America for decades. She was a Fulbright Research Fellow in Guatemala in 1994. In 1997, she coordinated the project on a private sector initiative in a post-conflict setting, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, D.C. and Guatemala. Currently, she is consulting with the Inter-American Development Bank on economic growth in Central America.
Rachel holds a PhD in moral philosophy from the University of Chicago, a Masters of Theological Studies from Emory University and a BA (Linguistics and Spanish) from Indiana University.
