Catherine S. M. Duggan

Catherine Duggan is Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where she teaches the Business, Government, and the International Economy (BGIE) course in the required curriculum. Her research examines institutional development, financial-sector regulation, and economic growth in emerging markets, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa.

Professor Duggan is the author of several Harvard Business School cases, including Nigeria: Opportunity in Crisis? , Uganda: The Constitution of Development, and Negotiating Trust: Borrowers, Lenders, and the Politics of Household Debt. Her current book project examines the evolution of debt, contract enforcement, and financial regulation from the middle ages into modern emerging markets. A related project extends these insights to the regulation of modern microfinance, drawing on nearly two years of fieldwork in Uganda and more than 400 interviews with microfinance borrowers, loan officers, government officials, and other stakeholders.

Professor Duggan received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University, where she was the G.J. Lieberman Fellow for the Social Sciences. Prior to attending Stanford, she was an industry analyst for the telecommunications group at the law firm of Mayer, Brown & Platt (now Mayer Brown LLP), and received a B.A. with highest honors in Political Science from Brown University.