Professor Zvi Eckstein is the Dean of the School of Economics at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzelia and visiting professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He served as Deputy Governor of the Bank of Israel from 2006 to 2011. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1981. Eckstein gave the Walras-Bowley lecture at the Econometric society summer 2008 meetings and he is a fellow of the Econometric Society. He studied economics at the University of Tel-Aviv where he received his B.A. in 1974, and at the University of Minnesota where he received his Ph.D. in 1981 for his dissertation on "Rational expectations modelling of agricultural supply: The Egyptian case". He was an Assistant Professor at Yale University, 1980-1983. At Tel-Aviv University he worked since 1983 and took early retirement at 2012 as Professor of Economics. From 2001 to 2008 he was professor of economics at the University of Minnesota. Besides he was a Visiting Associate Professor at Carnegie-Mellon University, 1986-1987, at the University of Pittsburgh, 1987-1988, and a Visiting Professor at Boston University, 1989-2001.

He has published numerous articles in journals such as the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Monetary Economics, European Economic Review, Journal of Public Economics, among others.

He joined IZA as a research fellow in April 1998.