Before coming to CGU as President (2005-2009), he was Dean and Ford Distinguished Professor of International Development and Security at the RAND Graduate School, America’s leading PhD program in policy analysis.
He has worked and done research in more than 40 countries around the world, working with governments, civil society organizations, and international institutions.
Klitgaard has been Visiting Fellow at Oxford; Li Ka-shing Distinguished Chair Professor at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore; professor of economics at the University of KwaZulu, Natal, and Fellow of the University; Lester Crown Visiting Professor of Economics at the Yale School of Management; associate professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and Special Assistant to the President of Harvard; Visiting Research Professor of Economics, University of Karachi. He received his BA, MPP, and PhD degrees from Harvard.
In June 2025, ScholarGPS ranked Klitgaard as one of the top 50 scholars in the world in three areas: exploratory data analysis (23rd), corruption (33rd), and policy analysis (48th).
In October 2024, he was honored with the Anti-Corruption Excellence Award in Academic Research and Education, which has been likened to the Nobel Prize for anti-corruption.
Klitgaard’s books have been translated into 18 languages. They include Controlling Corruption, which helped launch the global anti-corruption movement; Choosing Elites, which is included in The Harvard Guide to Influential Books; and Tropical Gangsters, which was named one of The New York Times’ Books of the Century.
Policy Analysis for Big Issues: Confronting Corruption, Elitism, Development, and Despair (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023). “There is no better guide to policies that seek to make life better and more just for everyone.” —Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University.
Read an excerpt here: https://www.cambridgescholars.com/resources/pdfs/978-1-5275-2528-3-sample.pdf.
Bold and Humble: How to Lead Public-Private-Citizen Collaboration, with Five Success Stories (Royal Institute for Governance and Strategic Studies, 2023; open access around the world at https://www.rigss.bt/books). “I never leave an interaction with Bob Klitgaard without at least one actionable insight that is both elegantly simple and piercingly accurate. This book is no exception, being packed with wisdom told through rich narratives and compelling characters. If you are looking to build unlikely coalitions to address seemingly unsolvable policy problems, then you must read this book.” —Karthik Ramanna, Professor of Business and Public Policy, University of Oxford.
Adjusting to Reality: Beyond “State versus Market” in Economic Development (Routledge paperback, 2023; originally published in 1991). “Lively and highly readable … goes beyond the abstractions of academia and the slogans of the World Bank to present a step-by-step guide to identifying problems and implementing the recommended policies.” —Journal of Economic Literature.
Prevail: How to Face Upheavals and Make Big Choices with the Help of Heroes (Wipf and Stock, 2022). “Robert Klitgaard is one of those rare professors who harnesses rigorous academic inquiry to big human questions, making his writing both insightful and relevant.’’ —Jim Collins, author of Good to Great.
The Culture and Development Manifesto (Oxford University Press, 2021). “Highly engaging … This is a book that only Klitgaard, with his sharp multidisciplinary lens, wealth of on-the-ground experience, and remarkable penmanship, could have pulled off.” —Dani Rodrik, Harvard University.
Policy Design and Implementation
GenAI for Graduate Success
AI for Humanity (with Itamar Shabtai)
Collaboration across the Public-Private Divide