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Dean Karlan

Dean Karlan

Behavioral Economist, Social Entrepreneur, Professor at Northwestern University & Author

Dean Karlan is the Frederic Esser Nemmers Distinguishe...

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Bio

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Dean Karlan is the Frederic Esser Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Economics and Finance, and co-director of the Global Poverty Research Lab at Northwestern University. His research focuses on development and behavioral economics. From 2005-2017 he was a professor of economics at Yale University, and from 2002-2005 he was a professor of economics at Princeton University.

As a social entrepreneur, in 2002 he founded and is currently President of Innovations for Poverty Action, a non-profit organization dedicated to discovering and promoting solutions to global poverty problems and working to scale-up successful ideas through implementation and dissemination to policymakers, practitioners, investors and donors. In 2007 Karlan co-founded stickK.com, a website that uses lessons from behavioral economics to help people reach personal goals. And in 2015, Karlan co-founded ImpactMatters, a nonprofit dedicated to providing donors ratings based on calculations of impact of nonprofit organizations.

Karlan received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He was awarded distinguished alumni awards from the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business and the Duke University Talent Identification Program.

Karlan has co-authored four books: More Than Good Intentions: How a New Economics is Helping to Solve Global Poverty (2011); a principles textbook Economics (3rd edition, 2020); Failing in the Field (2016); The Goldilocks Challenge (2018).

His received a Ph.D. in Economics from M.I.T. (2002), an M.B.A. and an M.P.P. from the University of Chicago (1997), and a B.A. in International Affairs from the University of Virginia (1990).

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Topics

Topics

More Than Good Intentions: How a New Economics is Helping to Solve Global Poverty

Behavioral Economics & Consumer Behavior: How to Optimize Products, Services & Customer Satisfaction

Using Behavioral Economics to Help People Lead the Lives They Want to Lead

Videos

Videos

Small Change Big Change, The Limbo Game of Savings: Dean Karlan at TEDxMiddlebury
Dean Karlan: Innovations for Poverty Action and Commitment

Books

MORE THAN GOOD INTENTIONS
MORE THAN GOOD INTENTIONS
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On behalf of myself and my organization Entertainment Unlimited the Campus Programming Board of Ferris State University, we thank you PDA and Dan for a successful event!! Dan was magnificent! Students really enjoyed the presentation. I know I did. Can’t wait to bring in more programs with PDA Group.

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