Experts

David Leblang

Fast Facts

  • Randolph P. Compton Professor and director of policy research at the Miller Center
  • Studies global migration and international investment and the spread of democracy
  • Expertise in international political economy, politics, economic policy, financial crises

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • Immigration
  • Economic Issues
  • Finance and Banking
  • Trade
  • Political Parties and Movements

David Leblang is the Miller Center's Randolph P. Compton Professor and director of policy research. He is also the Ambassador Henry J. Taylor and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Endowed Professor of Politics and a professor of public policy at the University's Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. He holds courtesy appointments at UVA’s School of Data Science and in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Jewish Studies Program.

Leblang specializes in the international political economy and has written extensively on international migration, global financial markets, and international economic crises. He is currently working on projects that connect globalization, AI exposure, migration, and democracy, both globally and across U.S. history. His work has appeared in prominent outlets such as the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, World Politics, and Economics and Politics. He has published two books, The Ties that Bind: Immigration and the Global Political Economy (with Benjamin Helms) and Democratic Processes and Financial Markets: Pricing Politics (with William Bernhard).

Prior to arriving at the University of Virginia in 2008, Leblang held teaching positions at the University of Colorado, the University of North Texas, and the College of William and Mary. He has been a visiting scholar in the research department of the International Monetary Fund and in the European Commission's Directorate of Economics and Finance, and a visiting fellow at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, the Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano in Milan, and the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. In 2015, Leblang received the Outstanding Faculty Mentoring Award from the University of Virginia, and in 2016 he received the Outstanding Mentoring Award from the Society of Women in International Political Economy of the International Studies Association.
 

David Leblang News Feed

In a round-table discussion, participants including Randolph P. Compton Professor David Leblang at the University of Virginia's Miller Center addressed the successes and failures of the Biden administration to date, and prospects for the midterm elections in November.
David Leblang RAIOxford
Annual apprehensions of people from Guatemala arriving in family units at the U.S. southern border grew exponentially between 2012 and 2019—from just 340 to a whopping 185,134 (Figure 1). As a proportion of total Guatemalan apprehensions, those apprehended as family units grew from less than 5 percent to 70 percent in the same period. This increase happened before the pandemic, before the 2020 hurricanes that devastated parts of Central America, and before President Biden was elected. The underlying conditions driving migration predate these events and still exist today and—without an adequate policy response—seem set to continue.
David Leblang Brookings Institution
Migrants help their home countries by building trade ties and by sending back both cash and political knowledge.
David Leblang and Margaret Peters The Washington Post
UVA professor David Leblang says that despite increased climate-driven migration, there's little political will to help those migrants.
David Leblang AP News
The increase in migration from Honduras over the last several years and the growing proportion of migrants arriving as family units is driven by persistently high levels of violence coupled with sharp increases in food insecurity.
David Leblang and Sarah Bermeo The Brookings Institution
David Leblang discusses effects of climate and violence on Honduran migration to the U.S. Leblang is a senior fellow at the Miller Center and professor of public policy at UVA.
David Leblang Brookings Blog