Andrei Shleifer ’82, the prominent Harvard economist who found himself at the center of a rare ethics investigation for his alleged role in defrauding the U.S. government, has been stripped of his endowed title as the Whipple V.N. Jones Professor of Economics.

Beginning on Friday, Shleifer was listed in the Harvard directory as a “Professor of Economics” at Harvard, a step down from the more prestigious, endowed Jones post.

“I was a professor of economics at Harvard last week, and I am a professor of economics at Harvard this week,” Shleifer said in a statement. “Working with my colleagues and students is what matters to me, and nothing has changed about that.”

A spokesman for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Robert P. Mitchell, confirmed Shleifer’s new title yesterday. The Boston Globe first reported the change on Friday.

Harvard economics professors said that the move would likely not correspond with a cut in Shleifer’s salary, and it was unclear whether Shleifer had been penalized in any other way by the University. FAS officials and Shleifer declined to comment on the details of the professor’s punishment.

The Crimson first reported the conclusion of a months-long investigation of Shleifer on Thursday. The ethics inquiry centered on allegations that the professor had violated Harvard conflict-of-interest rules when he made private investments in the Russian economy while advising a federally funded and Harvard-run aid program in the country.

A federal judge found Shleifer liable for conspiring to defraud the U.S. government in 2004, and Harvard last year paid $26.5 million to settle the case, while Shleifer, who has denied wrongdoing, paid $2 million.

Interim Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles, responding to charges that he mismanaged the Shleifer case by not consulting with the seven-member Committee on Professional Conduct (CPC) and a three-member investigating subcommittee before reaching a decision, told The Crimson on Wednesday that “appropriate action” had been taken in the case. He would not indicate whether that action included punishment.

Knowles is not technically required to notify the committee or the public of his action. But some professors on the CPC and the investigating subcommittee believe it is Knowles’ obligation to do so, according to two individuals who have spoken with committee members.

Gary J. Feldman, a physics professor who sits on the CPC, said that he was not aware of any committee members who had been notified of Knowles’ action or the findings of the subcommittee.

Feldman had previously advocated for the public release of Knowles’ decision and the subcommittee’s report, but on Saturday he said that the revelation that Shleifer’s title had been revoked was sufficient.

“This is probably all that we really need to know about the report,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Shleifer’s case is just one of two instances in which the CPC has ordered a subcommittee investigation in the past seven years, Feldman said.

The Shleifer investigation involved questions of whether the economist was bound by conflict-of-interest rules while he was advising the Harvard program in Russia, according to Feldman. Shleifer had maintained that he was not subject to the conflict-of-interest rules. The revocation of Shleifer’s endowed chair means that the investigating subcommittee found that he did indeed violate those rules, Feldman said.

Any financial penalty imposed by the University would be negligible, Feldman said, given that Shleifer has already paid the $2 million to settle the federal lawsuit brought against him. Because of this, Feldman said that stripping Shleifer’s title was the only “realistic” action Knowles could take.

“The punishment is largely symbolic, but we should remember that honors are important rewards to academics,” he added.

Shleifer’s former title honored Whipple Jones, the founder of the Aspen Highlands Skiing Corporation in Colorado who gave Harvard stock that was sold for $18.3 million in 1994. Jones died in 2001 at the age of 91.

With Shleifer’s demotion, all but seven of the 35 full professors in the department hold endowed chairs.

Nancy L. Rosenblum ’69, the chair of the government department and a CPC member, said she was unsure whether it would be appropriate to release the case’s details to the CPC or to the public. She said she could not reach a conclusion because she was not privy to the report’s contents or Knowles’ decision.

“Whether Harvard would be better off with sunshine disinfectant in this case is impossible to say,” she wrote in an e-mail Friday. “Unlike general policy matters, there are good reasons to protect individuals—in this case Prof Schleifer [sic], the subcommittee, and the Deans—from public dissection after the fact.”

Several of Shleifer’s colleagues in the economics department declined to comment on whether the professor had received any other punishments. But Claudia Goldin, the Lee professor of economics, wrote in an e-mail Thursday that Shleifer had appeared “quite content.”

“Prof. Shleifer does not appear to have been whipped, beaten, tortured, or starved,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I see no evidence of punishment.”

—Staff writer Javier C. Hernandez can be reached at jhernand@fas.harvard.edu.