Ian Larkin is an Assistant Professor in the Strategy group at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He researches the optimal use of formal rewards systems by companies, given the complex and often unanticipated effects these systems have on employee motivation and decision making. His research quantifying the cost incurred by a major enterprise software vendor due to salespeople deliberately gaming their sales commission system, published in The Journal of Labor Economics, is one of the most prominently cited empirical studies of incentive system gaming. It was the basis for a case study widely used in MBA classes on compensation and human resource management.

His recent research focuses on corporate awards and other programs companies use to formally recognize employee performance, and demonstrates that these programs often have unintended costs, such as the demotivation of some employee groups. A final stream of research investigates physician prescribing decisions in light of different sales tactics used by pharmaceutical sales representatives. His research has been discussed in a variety of media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes and National Public Radio.

Ian teaches the core Business Strategy course at Anderson. Before coming to Anderson, he was a member of the faculty at Harvard Business School, where he taught an elective MBA course on human resource management, as well as several executive education courses. He received a Ph.D. from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and a M.Sc. from the University of London, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. Ian worked as an Associate and Engagement Manager for McKinsey and Company, based in Hong Kong and Silicon Valley.

Ian’s hobbies include cooking, traveling and supporting the Green Bay Packers.

Sebastian Edwards is the Henry Ford II Professor of International Business Economics at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

From 1993 until April 1996, he was the Chief Economist for the Latin America and Caribbean Region of the World Bank. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a member of the advisory board of Transnational Research Corporation and co-chairman of the Inter American Seminar on Economics (IASE).

He is also past-president of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA), an international professional association of economists with academic interests in Latin America and the Caribbean region and a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Kiel Institute of World Economics, Kiel, Germany. In September 2004, Professor Edwards was appointed to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Council of Economic Advisors.

Edwards has been a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and is the author of more than 200 scientific articles on international economics, macroeconomics and economic development. His articles have appeared in The American Economic Review, The Journal of Monetary Economics, The Economic Journal, Oxford Economic Papers, The Journal of Development Economics, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Economic Perspectives and others. His work and views are frequently quoted in the media, including by the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Economist.

Edwards is an associate editor of The World Economy, the Journal of International Trade and Economic Development, the Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, and Analisis Economico. For almost ten years he was the co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics.

Edwards has been a consultant to a number of multilateral institutions, including the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the IMF, and the OECD. He has also been a consultant to the United States Agency for International Development and to a number of national and international corporations. He has worked in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Tanzania and Venezuela. He has also consulted for a number of international financial institutions and multinational firms.

Sebastian Edwards was born in Santiago, Chile. He was educated at the Catholic University of Chile, and received an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

Education

Ph.D. Economics, 1981, University of Chicago
M.A. Economics, 1978, University of Chicago
Licenciado Economics, 1975, Universidad Catolica, Chile

Interests

Mercosur, monetary policy, capital markets, Consumer Price Index, currency crises, devaluation, currency, emerging markets, employment, exchange rates, the Federal Reserve, inequality, inflation, Latin America, Mexico, NAFTA, and poverty