Charles Hankla

Charles R. Hankla is Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He is also Director of the International Center for Public Policy (ICePP) and Associate Director of the broader Public Finance Research Cluster (PFRC) in which it is housed. ICePP engages globally in research, professional training, and technical assistance in the areas of public finance and fiscal decentralization.

Dr. Hankla’s research is in the fields of comparative and international political economy, and he has a particular interest in political institutions as they relate to fiscal decentralization, budgeting, and trade and industrial policy. Dr. Hankla earned his PhD in 2005 from Emory University, and he holds degrees from Georgetown University and the London School of Economics.

Dr. Hankla is Team Leader and Senior Specialist in Fiscal Decentralization for a $1.2 million World Bank project in Mozambique. This project, administered by ICePP and overseen by the Mozambican Ministry of State Administration, involves a careful reimagining of fiscal decentralization in the country. Dr. Hankla is also leading ICePP’s engagement with a World Bank project in Cameroon that focuses on vertical fiscal transfers. His past consulting work has been supported by the United Nations Development Program, the US Department of State, the US Agency for International Development, and the G20.

Dr. Hankla’s work has appeared in such journals as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, International Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, and Publius. He has published a co-authored book from Edward Elgar entitled Local Accountability and National Coordination in Fiscal Federalism: A Fine Balance. His new book, In Pursuit of Prosperity: Industrial Policy and the Politics of Economic Upgrading, is forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press.

Dr. Hankla is currently Co-PI on a grant from the National Science Foundation funding a randomized controlled trial in the Indian state of Bihar. He is also a recent co-recipient of an International Growth Centre grant to fund a survey experiment in the same state. In addition, Dr. Hankla serves as comparative political economy field editor for the Journal of Public Policy and is a past secretary/treasurer of the Federalism section of the American Political Science Association. He speaks highly proficient French and has reading knowledge of Hindi.

Dr. Hankla is a past director of the political science department’s MA and PhD programs. He serves or has served on dozens of dissertation and thesis committees in political science, economics, and public policy, and he received the college Graduate Mentoring Award in 2017. In the spring and summer of 2013, Dr. Hankla was a visiting scholar at Sciences Po Lille in France.

Finally, Dr. Hankla is a regular public commentator on the politics of economic affairs. His online articles for the Conversation have attracted over 650,000 reads and have appeared on the websites of Newsweek, Time, Salon, The Huffington Post, The East Asia Forum, The World Economic Forum, Fortune, The New Republic, and The Business Standard of India, among many others. Dr. Hankla also gives regular media interviews and has appeared on or been quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the China Global Television Network, CBS News, BBC News, Julie Rose’s Top of Mind, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and many others.

Read the Georgia State News Hub’s Q&A with Dr. Hankla: How to Impact Public Finance Practices Around the Globe.