Malcolm K. Sparrow is Professor of the Practice of Public Management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is Faculty Chair of the School's Executive Program, "Strategic Management of Regulatory & Enforcement Agencies."
Research Interests: His current research interests relate to the risk-control functions of government, and to the special managerial challenges which confront agencies of social regulation and law enforcement. In this work he has focused particularly on the fields of policing, environmental protection, tax administration, customs, occupational safety & health, fraud control, corruption control, financial regulation, and civil aviation safety. He has helped many regulatory agencies develop models of performance measurement, information management and analysis needed to support their risk-control operations.
He is also a patent holding inventor in the area of automated fingerprint identification systems [AFIS], and dead serious at tennis.
Background: A mathematician by training, he joined the British Police Service in 1977, serving for ten years and rising to the rank of Detective Chief Inspector. At that rank he headed the Kent County Constabulary Fraud Squad. He has also conducted internal affairs investigations, commanded a tactical firearms unit, and had extensive experience of criminal investigation and general police management. He left the police to take up a faculty appointment at Harvard in 1988.
Books: His publications include the following books:
Fundamentals of Regulatory Design, Kindle Direct Publishing, 2020.
Handcuffed: What Holds Policing Back & the Keys to Reform, Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C., 2016
The Character of Harms: Operational Challenges in Control, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England and New York, USA, 2008
License to Steal: How Fraud Bleeds America’s Health Care System (2nd edition), Westview Press, Denver, Colorado & Oxford, England, 2000.
The Regulatory Craft: Controlling Risks, Solving Problems, and Managing Compliance, Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C., 2000.
License to Steal: Why Fraud Plagues America's Health Care System, Westview Press: Denver, Colorado & Oxford, England. 1996
Imposing Duties: Government's Changing Approach to Compliance, Praeger Books: Westport, Connecticut & London. 1994
Beyond 911: A New Era for Policing, Malcolm K. Sparrow, Mark H. Moore & David M. Kennedy, Basic Books: New York. 1990
Ethics in Government: The Moral Challenge of Public Leadership, Mark H. Moore & Malcolm K. Sparrow. Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1990
Academic Qualifications: He holds an M.A. in Mathematics from Cambridge University (England); an M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government; and a Ph.D in Applied Mathematics from the University of Kent at Canterbury (England).
Download one-page biographical sketch suitable for us as a conference speaker-bio; or full Curriculum Vitae.
Contact: (office direct line) 617-495-8359. malcolm_sparrow@harvard.edu
Faculty Assistant: Ashley Davis. ashley_davis@hks.harvard.edu