Karthik Muralidharan is the Tata Chancellor’s Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Born and raised in India, Prof. Muralidharan earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University (summa cum laude), an M.Phil. in economics from Cambridge University (ranked first), and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. His research spans development, public, and labor economics with a focus on improving the effectiveness of public spending in the social sector (education, health, and social protection programs). His research program is characterized by large-scale randomized experiments conducted in partnership with governments to study the impact of programs and policies at scale.
His research has been published in leading economics journals including the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and Journal of Political Economy; and also been featured in global media outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and The Economist in addition to several leading Indian newspapers.
Prof. Muralidharan is a Research Associate of the NBER, on the Board of Directors of the Poverty Action Lab at MIT where he is co-chair of the education research program and a Fellow and Board Member of the Bureau of Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD). He is actively involved in policy advising and capacity building in India at both the central and state government level, writes a column on economic policy for the Hindustan Times, and teaches a popular course on the Indian Economy at UCSD