Education
He received his bachelor"s degree from Queen"s College in 1953, and a Master"s and a Doctor of Philosophy from Harvard University in 1955 and 1958 respectively.
He received his bachelor"s degree from Queen"s College in 1953, and a Master"s and a Doctor of Philosophy from Harvard University in 1955 and 1958 respectively.
His research centers on Latin America"s industrialization and economic development, especially of Import Substitution Industrialization (Inter-Services Intelligence) and Brazil. Baer’s research and writing focus primarily on the areas of industrialization, growth and economic development, public policy, inflation, and income distribution and equity. One of the unique aspects of Baer"s work is the link he makes between historical, social, and institutional legacies of the Brazilian past and his direct and ongoing engagement with the most current issues of economic and public policy.
He has served on the editorial boards of the Luso-Brazilian Review, Emerging Markets Review, Economia Aplicada, Latin American Business Review, Revista Latinoamericana de Historica Economica y Social, Revista Paraguaya de Estudios Sociologicos, Latin American Research Review, and World Development.
He has taught at Yale (1961-1965), Vanderbilt (1965-1974), and the University of Illinois (1974–present), and he served as a program advisor for the Ford Foundation in Rio de Janeiro from 1967 to 1976. He has encouraged large numbers of young people to enter Brazilian studies and has recruited many, from both the United States and Brazil, to undertake doctoral studies in economics under his direction.
Baer’s multiple contributions have been widely recognized in Brazil. Carlos Alberto Braga, an economist at The World Bank, notes that not only does Baer’s analysis of Latin American economic development occupy a well-deserved place in the economic literature dedicated to the region but also that he has been a highly influential thinker and researcher
This is because he has been responsible for establishing one of the largest networks of those interested in the economies of Latin American.
His impact on debates about Latin America’s economic experience goes well beyond his writings. Rafael Correa, the current president of Ecuador, and Alexandre Tombini, the current president of the Brazilian Central Bank, were advised by Baer during their time at Illinois. His book, The Brazilian Economy: Growth and Development, is one of the only comprehensive studies in English of all aspects of Brazil"s economic development, and is currently in its 7th edition
He has served as a visiting lecturer at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as well as the New University of Lisbon, Portugal.
He also served as an assistant professor at Yale and an instructor at Harvard.
The Brazilian Economy:Development and Growth
CV
Brazilian television interview (in Portuguese)
Brazilian television interview (in Portuguese).
Werner Baer and his sister Marianne Baer were born in Offenbach, Germany, in 1931 and 1935, respectively, to Dr. Richard Baer and Grete Baer, née Herz.
Faced with increasing persecution by the Nazis, they had to take refuge in Brussels.
In May 1940, Dr. Richard Baer was deported from Belgium to several internment camps in southern France.
After the family reunited near Pau (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) in 1941, they managed to reach Switzerland in 1942 and remained there until the end of WW2. They arrived in New York Harbor in December 1945.