Professor and E. Thayer Bigelow Research Chair in Business Administration Peter Debaere is faculty leader for the Executive MBA. In addition to teaching the core Global Economies and Markets (GEM) course, he developed and teaches "Global Economics of Water" and "Managing International Trade and Investment," two Second Year electives. Debaere has received a multiyear outstanding teacher award for being consistently in the top 10 percent at Darden.

Debaere is an international economist, with a focus on international trade, multinationals and trade policy. He is also a water expert. In recent years, his research has studied the economics of water, especially in a global context: To what extent does water scarcity determine what countries produce and trade? What explains the remarkable pattern of water use in the United States, and is the U.S. experience replicable abroad? How can water markets work as a tool in the fight against water scarcity? With a Rockefeller Grant, Debaere currently investigates together with The Nature Conservancy the use of water markets for environmental purposes in the United States, Chile and Mexico. Many of his articles have been discussed in textbooks and graduate courses. At Darden and UVA, Debaere leads the Global Water Initiative that brings together scholars from across UVA to do research, teach and give policy advice about the water challenges that we face. Debaere's papers have been published in top general interest and field journals such as Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Journal: Applied, the Journal of International Economics, and the Journal of Development Economics, as well as policy-oriented journals such as Water Policy.

A native of Belgium, Debaere has held other positions worldwide. Before joining Darden, Debaere was on the faculty of the Economics Department at the University of Texas, Austin. He also had a stint at the International Monetary Fund and the Institute for the German Economy in Germany. In 2012, Debaere taught at the Haas Business School while visiting the University of California at Berkeley. He also visited the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany and the Leverhulme Centre for Research on Globalisation in the United Kingdom. At the University of Virginia, Debaere has co-organized the World Water Day symposia. He is also affiliated with Darden's Institute for Business in Society and the university's Economics department, and is on the advisory board of the Center for German Studies, where he takes a keen interest in transatlantic environmental questions.