Joseph P. Kalt (born 1951) is an American economist and the Ford Foundation Professor (Emeritus) of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His research focuses on governance and economic development, particularly in American Indian reservations and Indigenous communities worldwide.
In 1987, he co-founded the Harvard Project on Indigenous Governance and Development (formerly the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development) with Stephen Cornell, and continues to serve as co-director. Kalt is recognized for his expertise in the economics of antitrust, economic development, international trade, government regulation, and taxation. From the mid-1980s until 2019, he worked as a Senior Economist at Compass Lexecon and its predecessors, providing advisory and expert witness services on regulation, taxation, and economic development to various national and international governments, including those of Thailand.[1], China[2], Canada[3], Poland, Indonesia[4], and numerous Indigenous nations.