Sendhil Mullainathan

Sendhil Mullainathan
Kaveh Sardari - Center for Global Development (CGD) · CC BY 2.0 · source
Name	Sendhil Mullainathan
Birth date	1973
Occupation	Economist, Professor, Entrepreneur
Alma mater	* Harvard University * Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Employer	* Harvard University * University of Chicago

Sendhil Mullainathan is an Indian-American economist and professor known for work at the intersection of behavioral economics, development economics, and public policy. He has held faculty positions at major institutions and co-founded ventures that apply academic insights to address poverty, finance, and technology. His research blends empirical methods from randomized controlled trials, field experiments, and machine learning to study decision-making in contexts such as microfinance, labor markets, and health care.

Early life and education

Mullainathan was born in Chennai and raised in New Delhi, later emigrating to the United States where he studied at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At Harvard University he was exposed to scholars associated with Kenneth Arrow, Amartya Sen, and Daron Acemoglu through departmental seminars, while his doctoral training at MIT connected him to faculty in the tradition of Paul Samuelson, Robert Solow, and Esther Duflo. His early academic mentors included economists who worked on development economics, information economics, and experimental methods exemplified by Angus Deaton, Abhijit Banerjee, and Michael Kremer.

Academic career

Mullainathan joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later the University of Chicago Booth School of Business before moving to Harvard University as a professor. He has held appointments and visiting positions connected to centers such as the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Center for Economic Policy Research, and the Behavioral Science & Public Policy program at Harvard Kennedy School. His teaching covered topics related to microeconomics, empirical methods, and behavioral finance, and he has supervised doctoral students who went on to positions at institutions like Princeton University, Stanford University, and Yale University.

Research and contributions

Mullainathan's research integrates techniques from randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental designs, and machine learning to investigate poverty, discrimination, and decision-making. He co-authored influential papers on implicit bias and statistical discrimination that engaged with literatures from scholars such as Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, and Richard Thaler. His work on scarcity—developed in collaboration with Eldar Shafir—drew on evidence from field experiments in India, Kenya, and the United States to connect cognitive load and financial behavior, situating findings alongside research by Raj Chetty and Bruno Frey. He examined credit markets and microfinance efficacy in the tradition of Muhammad Yunus and analyses by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, and contributed to debates on minimum wage effects and labor market discrimination alongside studies from Alan Krueger and Audrey Light.

Methodologically, Mullainathan popularized combining predictive algorithms from computer science—notably approaches influenced by work at Google and research from Yoshua Bengio—with causal inference frameworks used by Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens. His empirical contributions span journals and outlets that also publish work by Ester Duflo, Michael Kremer, Angus Deaton, and Daniel Kahneman. He has written about policy implications with references to institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and United Nations agencies.

Entrepreneurship and policy work

Beyond academia, Mullainathan co-founded organizations aimed at applying behavioral insights and data science to social problems, working alongside entrepreneurs and policymakers connected to Bill Gates, Melinda Gates Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation initiatives. He co-created platforms that use machine learning for development finance and partnered with governments and NGOs including USAID, DFID, and Oxfam on program design and evaluation. His ventures brought together technologists influenced by startups in Silicon Valley, collaborations with researchers from Microsoft Research and IBM Research, and pilots with social enterprises inspired by Grameen Bank and Kiva.

He has served as an adviser to regulatory bodies and policy commissions, engaging with officials from United States Department of the Treasury, UK Treasury, and multilateral bodies such as the World Health Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. His policy writing has addressed topics also considered by Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, and Janet Yellen.

Awards and honors

Mullainathan's honors include prizes and fellowships from organizations like the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and accolades shared across circles that have recognized work by Daniel Kahneman and Robert Shiller. He has been invited to deliver named lectures at venues associated with London School of Economics, Yale University, and the Brookings Institution and has been elected to scholarly societies connected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society.

Personal life and public engagement

Mullainathan participates in public discourse through essays and media appearances in outlets that host contributions from The New York Times, The Economist, and The Atlantic. He has collaborated with public intellectuals such as Malcolm Gladwell and Steven Pinker in forums on behavioral science, and has appeared at conferences alongside speakers from TED, World Economic Forum, and academic gatherings like the Allied Social Science Associations meeting. His public-facing work bridges scholarship and practice, linking discussions with policymakers and technologists at institutions including Harvard Kennedy School and Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Category:Economists Category:Behavioral economists