Michael Robert Kremer (born November 12, 1964) is an American development economist currently serving as university professor in economics at the University of Chicago and director of the Development Innovation Lab at the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics. Kremer formerly served as the Gates Professor of Developing Societies at Harvard University, a role he held from 2003 to 2020. In 2019, Kremer was jointly awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, together with Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty." In addition to his academic appointments, Kremer is the co-founder of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 2008, he was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Kremer is also the Scientific Director of Development Innovation Ventures, a program of the United States Agency for International Development aimed at maximizing the impact of development spending through rigorous impact evaluation.
Early life and education Michael Robert Kremer was born on November 12, 1964 to Eugene and Sara Lillian (née Kimmel) Kremer in New York City. Both his mother and father were the children of Jewish immigrants, from Poland and Austria-Poland, respectively. His father taught architecture at Kansas State University, and his mother was a professor of English at the same institution, where she specialized in American Jewish and Holocaust literature. Kremer attended Manhattan High School in Manhattan, Kansas, where his mother was formerly a teacher. Beginning in fifth grade, he took classes at Kansas State University, taking enough credits to achieve sophomore standing by his junior year of high school. He left high school a year early to attend Harvard University, where he received his AB in Social Studies in 1985, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Kremer wrote his senior thesis comparing an employment guarantee program in India with a food subsidy scheme in Sri Lanka. After graduating from Harvard, Kremer worked for a year as a teacher and administrator at Eshisiru Secondary School in Kakamega District of Kenya. Inspired by the experience, he co-founded WorldTeach, a Cambridge-based nonprofit organization focused on international development and education, where he currently serves as President of the Board. After his time in Kenya, Kremer returned to Harvard University, where he received a PhD in Economics in 1992. Kremer's dissertation research was supervised by Robert Barro, Eric Maskin, and Greg Mankiw, and focused on the determinants of long-run economic growth. His PhD research was supported by a fellowship from the National Science Foundation, and won the David A. Wells Prize, awarded annually to the best dissertation in the Harvard Department of Economics. Kremer is the husband of Rachel Glennerster, president of the Center for Global Development, an associate professor of economics at the University of Chicago, and the former Chief Economist of the UK Department for International Development.
Career Kremer began his academic career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he served as a postdoctoral fellow from 1992 to 1993. He was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Chicago in spring 1993, and joined MIT as an assistant professor the same year. He was promoted to associate professor in 1996, and again to professor of economics in 1998. In 1999, he joined Harvard University, where he served as Gates Professor of Developing Societies from 2003 to 2020. After his time at Harvard, Kremer again joined the University of Chicago, where he is a university professor in economics and director of the Development Innovation Lab at the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics. In addition to his academic appointments, Kremer is a fellow of the Econometric Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2002, he co-founded the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development, a non-profit learned society promoting research on the microeconomics of development. Since 1999, Kremer has also been a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
