Michael Robert Kremer (born November 12, 1964) is an American
development economist
Development economics is a branch of economics which deals with economic aspects of the development process in low- and middle- income countries. Its focus is not only on methods of promoting economic development, economic growth and structural ...
who is University Professor in Economics And Public Policy at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
.
He is the founding director of the Development Innovation Lab at the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics.
Kremer served as the Gates Professor of Developing Societies at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
until 2020.
In 2019, he was jointly awarded the
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...
, together with
Esther Duflo
Esther Duflo, FBA (; born 25 October 1972) is a French–American economist who is a professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is the co-founder and co-director of the Ab ...
and
Abhijit Banerjee
Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (; born 21 February 1961) is an Indian-American economist who is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Banerjee shared the 2019 Nobel Memorial Priz ...
, "for their experimental approach to
alleviating global poverty."
Early life and education
Michael Robert Kremer was born in 1964 to Eugene and Sara Lillian (née Kimmel) Kremer in New York City. His father, Eugene Kremer was the son of Jewish immigrants to the US from Austria-Poland. His mother, Sara Lillian Kremer was a professor of English literature, who specialized in American Jewish and Holocaust literature. Her parents were Jewish immigrants to the US from Poland. He graduated from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
(A.B. in Social Studies in 1985 and Ph.D. in economics in 1992).
Career
A postdoctoral fellow at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
(MIT) from 1992 to 1993, Kremer was a visiting assistant professor at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
in Spring 1993, and professor at MIT from 1993 to 1999. From 1999 to 2020, he was a professor at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. He joined the faculty at the University of Chicago as a professor in the
Kenneth C. Griffin
Kenneth Cordele Griffin (born October 15, 1968) is an American hedge fund manager, entrepreneur and investor. He is the founder, chief executive officer, co-chief investment officer, and 80% owner of Citadel LLC, a multinational hedge fund. He ...
Department of Economics, the college, and the
Harris School of Public Policy
The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, also referred to as "Harris Public Policy," is the public policy school of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is located on the University's main campus in Hy ...
on September 1, 2020.
[
Kremer has focused his research on ]poverty
Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...
reduction, often as it relates to education economics
Education economics or the economics of education is the study of economic issues relating to education, including the demand for education, the financing and provision of education, and the comparative efficiency of various educational programs ...
and health economics
Health economics is a branch of economics concerned with issues related to efficiency, effectiveness, value and behavior in the production and consumption of health and healthcare. Health economics is important in determining how to improv ...
. Working with Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (with whom he shared the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics), he helped establish the effectiveness of randomized controlled trials to test proposed antipoverty measures. Describing Kremer's early use of pioneering experimental methods, Duflo said that Kremer “was there from the very beginning, and took enormous risks . . . . He is a visionary.”
Kremer is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
, a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship (1997) and a Presidential Faculty Fellowship, and was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
. He is a research affiliate at Innovations for Poverty Action
Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is an American non-profit research and policy organization founded in 2002 by economist Dean Karlan. Since its foundation, IPA has worked with over 400 leading academics to conduct over 600 evaluations in 51 c ...
(IPA), a New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...
-based research outfit dedicated to creating and evaluating solutions to social and international development problems. Kremer is a member of Giving What We Can
Giving What We Can (GWWC) is an effective altruism-associated organisation whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities. It was founded at Oxford University in 2009 by the philosopher Toby Ord, physician-in- ...
, an effective altruism
Effective altruism is a philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". People who pursue the goals of effective altruism, c ...
organization whose members pledge to give 10% of their income to effective charities. He is founder and president of WorldTeach
WorldTeach was a non-governmental organization that provided opportunities for individuals to live and work as volunteer teachers in developing countries. Approximately 300 volunteers were annually placed in year-long and summer programs, with m ...
, a Harvard-based organization which places college students and recent graduates as volunteer teachers on summer and year-long programs in developing countries around the world. He is also co-founder of Precision Development (PxD), a non-profit organization that leverages the global emergence of the mobile phone to provide digital agronomic advisory services to smallholder
A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology ...
farmers at scale.
Kremer started the advanced market commitment, which focuses on creating incentive mechanisms to encourage the development of vaccine
A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifie ...
s for use in developing countries, and the use of randomized trials to evaluate interventions in the social sciences. He created the well-known economic theory regarding skill complementarities called Kremer's O-Ring Theory of Economic Development. In 2000, Kremer, along with Charles Morcom, published a study recommending that governments fight elephant poaching by stockpiling ivory and so that they can proactively flood the market if elephant populations decline too severely.
In his widely cited paper "Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990", Kremer studied economic change over the last one million years. He found that economic growth ''increased'' with population growth.
Kremer led a panel on the reformation of education systems at the International Growth Centre
The International Growth Centre (IGC) is an economic research centre based at the London School of Economics, operated in partnership with University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government.
The centre was launched in December 2008 and is fund ...
's Growth Week 2010. In early 2021, he was appointed by the G20
The G20 or Group of Twenty is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union (EU). It works to address major issues related to the global economy, such as international financial stability, climate change mitigatio ...
to the High Level Independent Panel (HLIP) on financing the global commons for pandemic preparedness and response, co-chaired by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (; born 13 June 1954) is a Nigerian economist, who has been serving as the Director-General of the World Trade Organization since March 2021. Notably, she is the first woman and first African to lead the World Trade Organiza ...
, Tharman Shanmugaratnam
Tharman Shanmugaratnam (Tamil: தர்மன் சண்முகரத்தினம்; born 25 February 1957) is a Singaporean politician and economist who has been serving as Senior Minister of Singapore since 2019 and has also been Co ...
and Lawrence Summers
Lawrence Henry Summers (born November 30, 1954) is an American economist who served as the 71st United States secretary of the treasury from 1999 to 2001 and as director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010. He also served as pre ...
.
Recognition
* 2019 - Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...
, together with co-researchers Abhijit Banerjee
Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (; born 21 February 1961) is an Indian-American economist who is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Banerjee shared the 2019 Nobel Memorial Priz ...
and Esther Duflo
Esther Duflo, FBA (; born 25 October 1972) is a French–American economist who is a professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is the co-founder and co-director of the Ab ...
, "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty".
* 2018 – Boris Mints Institute
The Boris Mints Institute at Tel Aviv University is an entity promoting research and planning, founded by Boris Mints, Dr Boris Mints.
The Boris Mints Institute was established in 2016 at the Gershon H. Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences, and has ...
Prize for Research of Strategic Policy Solutions to Global Challenges
* 2005 – Kenneth J. Arrow Award for best paper in health economics, awarded by the International Health Economics Association (IHEA)Michael Kremer
Center for Global Development
The Center for Global Development (CGD) is a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C., and London that focuses on international development.
History
It was founded in November 2001 by former senior U.S. official Edward W. Scott, directo ...
(CGD).
Personal life
Kremer is the husband of economist
Rachel Glennerster
Rachel Glennerster (born 21 October 1965) is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. Glennerster served as chief economist for the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, formerly the Department for International Dev ...
.
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
External links
Home pageInnovations for Poverty ActionPrecision Agriculture for Development (PAD)an
at
Research Papers in Economics
Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) is a collaborative effort of hundreds of volunteers in many countries to enhance the dissemination of research in economics. The heart of the project is a decentralized database of working papers, preprints, ...
/RePEc
Publicationsat the
National Bureau of Economic Research
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...
* including the Prize Lecture 8 December 2019 ''Experimentation, Innovation, and Economics''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kremer, Michael
1964 births
20th-century American economists
21st-century American economists
American Nobel laureates
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
Center for Global Development
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellows of the Econometric Society
Harvard University alumni
Harvard University faculty
Jewish American economists
Living people
MacArthur Fellows
Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Nobel laureates in Economics
Place of birth missing (living people)
University of Chicago faculty
Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers