Raj Chetty

Raj Chetty
Born	Nadarajan Chetty 4 8, 1979
Birthplace	New Delhi, India
Nationality	American
Occupation	Economist, professor
Title	William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics
Employer	Harvard University
Known for	Research on economic mobility, equality of opportunity, tax policy
Education	Ph.D., Harvard University
Awards	John Bates Clark Medal (2013), MacArthur Fellowship (2012), Infosys Prize (2020)
Website	[http://www.rajchetty.com/ Official site]

Nadarajan "Raj" Chetty (born August 4, 1979) is an American economist and the William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics at Harvard University. Born in New Delhi and raised in the United States, Chetty has become one of the most prominent empirical economists of his generation, known for his large-scale, data-driven research on equality of opportunity, intergenerational economic mobility, tax policy, and the long-term effects of teachers on student outcomes. Offered tenure at Harvard at the age of 28, he became one of the youngest tenured professors in the history of the university's economics department. He is a recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded by the American Economic Association to the most outstanding American economist under the age of 40, and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2012. Through his leadership of the Opportunity Insights research lab at Harvard, Chetty has shaped contemporary public discourse about the American Dream, producing influential findings on how neighborhoods, social networks, schools, and housing policy affect the economic trajectories of children across the United States.

Early Life

Raj Chetty was born on August 4, 1979, in New Delhi, India. His family immigrated to the United States when he was a child. Chetty grew up in an environment that valued education and intellectual pursuit. His father, Veerappa Chetty, was an economist, which may have contributed to his early exposure to the discipline.

Details about Chetty's childhood in the United States and his early schooling have been documented in profiles noting that he demonstrated exceptional academic ability from a young age. He arrived at Harvard University as an undergraduate and, according to an account published in The Harvard Crimson, had only been at the university for a week before he began emailing "a bunch of professors" asking if they were looking for research assistants. This early initiative foreshadowed the relentless work ethic and intellectual ambition that would characterize his subsequent career in economics.

Education

Chetty attended Harvard University for both his undergraduate and graduate education. He earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard, graduating in 2000. He then continued at Harvard for his doctoral studies in economics, completing his Ph.D. at a notably young age. His doctoral work focused on public economics and tax policy, areas that would remain central to his research agenda throughout his career.

During his time as a graduate student at Harvard, Chetty developed the analytical skills and methodological approach—combining economic theory with large administrative datasets—that would later distinguish his research. His early academic work drew the attention of senior faculty and established him as one of the most promising young economists in the field.

Career

Early Academic Career

Following the completion of his Ph.D., Chetty began his academic career at an accelerated pace. He joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where he served as a professor of economics. His early research focused on public finance and tax policy, examining how taxes affect consumer and firm behavior. One of his early influential papers examined the salience of taxes—the degree to which consumers notice and respond to different forms of taxation—which offered new insights into the behavioral dimensions of tax policy.

Chetty's work at Berkeley quickly attracted wide recognition. He was identified by the Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) rankings as one of the top young economists in the world. His ability to combine rigorous theoretical frameworks with innovative empirical methods using large datasets set his research apart from that of many peers.

Return to Harvard and Tenure

In a remarkable achievement, Chetty was offered a tenured position at Harvard University's Department of Economics at the age of 28, making him one of the youngest scholars to receive tenure in the department's history. His return to his alma mater marked the beginning of an extraordinarily productive period during which he expanded his research agenda from tax policy to broader questions of economic mobility and equality of opportunity.

At Harvard, Chetty assembled a team of researchers and began leveraging large-scale administrative data from the Internal Revenue Service and other government sources to study how economic opportunity varies across the United States. This work represented a methodological shift in economics, demonstrating how anonymized tax records covering millions of individuals could be used to answer fundamental questions about social mobility that had previously been studied only with smaller survey datasets.

Research on Economic Mobility and Opportunity

Chetty's most widely cited and publicly impactful body of work concerns intergenerational economic mobility in the United States. Working with collaborators including Nathaniel Hendren, John Friedman, and others, Chetty produced a series of landmark studies that mapped the geography of opportunity across America with unprecedented granularity.

One of the central findings of this research is that rates of upward mobility—the likelihood that a child born into a low-income family will rise to higher income levels in adulthood—vary dramatically across different regions of the United States. The research showed that some metropolitan areas offer significantly greater chances of upward mobility than others, and that these differences are correlated with factors such as residential segregation, income inequality, school quality, social capital, and family structure.

This body of work has had significant implications for how policymakers, journalists, and the general public understand the American Dream. In a January 2026 podcast interview with The Economist, Chetty discussed whether America remains a place where anyone can get ahead, reflecting on how his data-driven findings illuminate the current state of economic mobility.

A report from his Opportunity Insights lab, which received attention in early 2026, ranked Metro Atlanta last among the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the United States for economic mobility, underscoring the persistence of geographic disparities. Research from Equitable Growth in October 2025 further explored how Chetty's framework for studying intergenerational mobility has prompted a rethinking of how economic mobility unfolds, challenging the assumption that it only changes gradually over long periods of time.

Neighborhood Effects and Housing Policy

A significant strand of Chetty's research has examined how neighborhoods affect children's long-term outcomes. Drawing on data from the Moving to Opportunity experiment and related housing programs, Chetty and his collaborators demonstrated that moving children to lower-poverty neighborhoods at a young age can significantly improve their future earnings, college attendance rates, and other life outcomes. These findings have had direct implications for housing policy in the United States.

In January 2026, new research from Chetty's team examined the HOPE VI program, a federal initiative launched in the 1990s that demolished old public housing projects and replaced them with redesigned developments. As reported by NPR, the research found that the design and social environment of public housing—particularly the social networks children form—can shape their economic prospects. The study showed that the program helped children escape poverty in part by changing who they befriended, highlighting the role of social connections in economic mobility. The Harvard Gazette reported on the same research, noting that the work builds upon previous studies focused on moving families from high-poverty areas and broadens the analysis to include the design and social milieu of housing developments.

Research on Teachers and Education

Another major area of Chetty's research has examined the long-term impact of teachers on student outcomes. In a series of influential papers, Chetty and his collaborators—including Friedman and Jonah Rockoff—used administrative data to track students over time and measure how teacher quality, as measured by "value-added" metrics, affects students' future earnings, college attendance, and other life outcomes.

The research found that students assigned to high value-added teachers earned more as adults, were more likely to attend college, and had lower rates of teenage pregnancy. These findings were presented in legal proceedings, including the Vergara v. California case, where Chetty provided expert testimony on the impact of teachers on student learning and lifetime success.

One notable paper by Chetty examined the effects of receiving dividend income, contributing to the understanding of how tax policy and corporate payouts affect economic behavior.

Opportunity Insights

Chetty directs Opportunity Insights, a research and policy institute based at Harvard University. The lab uses big data to study how to improve economic opportunity in the United States. Opportunity Insights has produced several major research projects, including the Opportunity Atlas—an interactive tool that maps children's outcomes in adulthood for every Census tract in the United States—and studies on the role of social capital and cross-class friendships in promoting economic mobility.

The lab's work has drawn attention from policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels. As evidenced by the Atlanta Regional Commission's response to Opportunity Insights data in January 2026, the lab's findings are being used by metropolitan planning organizations and local governments to design interventions aimed at improving economic mobility. In 2025, Chetty was invited to speak at Furman University's Riley Institute in Greenville, South Carolina, described as a "renowned big-data economist," reflecting the continued public interest in his research findings.

Editorial and Advisory Roles

In addition to his research and teaching responsibilities, Chetty serves as an advisory editor of the Journal of Public Economics, one of the leading academic journals in the field of public finance and economics.

Personal Life

Chetty was born in New Delhi, India, and moved to the United States as a child. He holds American citizenship. Details about his personal life beyond his academic career are limited in public sources. The Harvard Crimson profiled Chetty extensively in 2025, describing his intense work ethic and the impact he has had on the economics profession, with one observer referring to him as "the Michael Jordan of whatever he did."

Chetty has spoken in interviews and public forums about his interest in translating economic research into actionable policy. In a conversation with economist Tyler Cowen, Chetty discussed topics including inequality, mobility, and the American Dream, reflecting his commitment to making data accessible to both scholars and the broader public.

Recognition

Chetty has received numerous awards and honors recognizing his contributions to economics and public policy.

In 2012, he was named a MacArthur Fellow, receiving the so-called "genius grant" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The Associated Press reported on the award as part of its coverage of that year's MacArthur Fellows class.

In 2013, Chetty received the John Bates Clark Medal from the American Economic Association, awarded annually to the American economist under the age of 40 who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. The award cemented his status as one of the leading economists of his generation.

Chetty has also been recognized by the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), receiving the IZA Young Labor Economist Award.

In 2020, Chetty was awarded the Infosys Prize in the Social Sciences (Economics) category, recognizing his contributions to the understanding of economic mobility and opportunity.

The Economist has profiled Chetty's work on multiple occasions, and The Wall Street Journal has covered his research findings in depth.

Legacy

Raj Chetty's research has reshaped the study of economic mobility and equality of opportunity in the United States and influenced public policy debates on issues ranging from housing and education to tax policy and neighborhood investment. His methodological innovations—particularly the use of large-scale administrative data from tax records to study long-term economic outcomes—have set a new standard in empirical economics and have been adopted by researchers across the discipline.

Through Opportunity Insights, Chetty has made his research findings accessible to policymakers, civic leaders, and the general public. The Opportunity Atlas and related tools have been used by state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, and community groups to identify areas of low mobility and design targeted interventions. The Atlanta Regional Commission's 2026 use of Opportunity Insights data to assess and address economic mobility challenges in Metro Atlanta is one example of how this research has been translated into policy action.

Chetty's work on the effects of neighborhoods on children's outcomes has influenced federal housing policy, particularly discussions about housing voucher programs and the design of public housing developments. His research on the HOPE VI program, published in early 2026, added to the evidence base supporting the idea that the physical design and social environment of housing developments matter for children's long-term economic prospects.

In the field of education, Chetty's research on teacher value-added has been cited in legal proceedings and policy debates about teacher evaluation and tenure. His finding that high-quality teachers have lasting effects on students' earnings and life outcomes has contributed to discussions about education reform across the United States.

As The Harvard Crimson noted in its 2025 profile, Chetty has reshaped economics not only through his findings but through his approach to the discipline—demonstrating that rigorous empirical research using big data can address some of the most consequential questions in social science.