Leonard Wantchekon is a Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, as well as Associated Faculty in Economics.

A scholar with diverse interests, Wantchekon has made substantive and methodological contributions to the fields of Political Economy, Economic History and Development Economics, and has also contributed significantly to the literature on political distortions and development, education and social mobility.

Wantchekon is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Econometric Society and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Economic Association. He has served as Vice President of the American Political Science Association and on the Executive Committee of the Afrobarometer Network.

He is the Founder and President of the African School of Economics, which opened in Benin in 2014.