Barry Robert Weingast (born September 1, 1952)[1] is an American political scientist and economist, who is currently the Ward C. Krebs Family Professor at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Thereafter, he moved on to graduate studies in economics at the California Institute of Technology, which awarded him a Ph.D. in June 1978 for his thesis, "A representative legislature and regulatory agency capture.

His current position, the Ward C. Krebs Family Professor, was awarded to him by Stanford University in 1997.

[6] His most cited research article, co-authored with Nobel Memorial Prize laureate Douglass C. North in 1989, analyzes the development of constitutional arrangements in 17th-century England after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and posits based on evidence from capital markets that new institutions successfully enabled the government to commit credibly to upholding property rights.

[7] Further important research contributions to economics by Weingast include the following: Weingast's recent work includes: the central role of violence in the political-economics of development (with Gary W. Cox and North); the political and constitutional foundations of Ancient Athens (with Federica Carugati and Josiah Ober).