Michael Kremer

Michael Kremer
Born	Michael Robert Kremer 12 11, 1964
Birthplace	New York City, United States
Nationality	American
Occupation	Economist, academic
Title	University Professor in Economics; Director, Development Innovation Lab
Employer	University of Chicago
Known for	O-ring theory of economic development, randomized controlled trials in development economics
Education	Ph.D., Harvard University
Spouse(s)	Rachel Glennerster
Awards	Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2019), MacArthur Fellowship

Michael Robert Kremer (born November 12, 1964) is an American development economist whose work has reshaped how researchers and policymakers understand and address global poverty. A 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 is among the most influential economists of his generation in the field of development. In 2019, he was jointly awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences alongside Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty." Kremer's contributions span theoretical economics — most notably his O-ring theory of economic development — and pioneering empirical work using randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate interventions in education, health, and agriculture in developing countries. Before joining the University of Chicago in 2020, Kremer held the Gates Professorship of Developing Societies at Harvard University for nearly two decades. He is a co-founder of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Early Life

Michael Robert Kremer was born on November 12, 1964, in New York City. Details about his parents and childhood upbringing are not extensively documented in public sources, though his subsequent career trajectory suggests an early interest in economics, public policy, and the developing world. Kremer's formative intellectual experiences included time spent teaching in Kenya, an experience that would profoundly shape his research agenda and commitment to using rigorous empirical methods to address problems of poverty in low-income countries.

His time in Kenya — where he taught as a young man before beginning his doctoral studies — exposed him to the educational and health challenges facing communities in sub-Saharan Africa. This direct experience with the realities of development informed his later insistence on field-based experimental research rather than purely theoretical modeling. The problems he observed in Kenyan schools — including teacher absenteeism, lack of textbooks, and health-related barriers to learning — would become central themes in his academic career and some of his most cited research projects.

Education

Kremer pursued his undergraduate education at Harvard University, where he developed his interests in economics. He continued at Harvard for his graduate work, completing his Ph.D. in economics in 1992 with a dissertation titled "Two Essays on Economic Growth." His doctoral advisors included three of the most prominent economists of the era: Robert Barro, Eric Maskin, and Greg Mankiw. The combination of Barro's expertise in economic growth theory, Maskin's work in mechanism design (for which Maskin would later receive the Nobel Prize), and Mankiw's contributions to New Keynesian economics provided Kremer with a broad and rigorous theoretical foundation. His dissertation work on economic growth laid the groundwork for what would become his O-ring theory of economic development, one of his most recognized theoretical contributions.

Career

Harvard University (1993–2020)

Following completion of his doctorate, Kremer joined the faculty of Harvard University's Department of Economics. He rose through the academic ranks and in 2003 was appointed the Gates Professor of Developing Societies, a position he held until 2020. During his nearly three decades at Harvard, Kremer established himself as one of the foremost scholars in development economics, producing a body of work that combined innovative theory with extensive field research.

O-Ring Theory of Economic Development

One of Kremer's earliest and most influential theoretical contributions was his O-ring theory of economic development, named after the O-ring failure that caused the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1993, the theory proposed a model of production in which tasks must be completed proficiently by every worker in a production process for the final product to have high value. In Kremer's model, a single weak link in the production chain can drastically reduce the value of output — much as a single faulty O-ring destroyed the Challenger. The theory offered an explanation for several persistent features of economic development, including the large wage differentials between rich and poor countries, the tendency of high-skill workers to sort into firms and countries together, and the difficulty developing countries face in catching up to wealthy nations. The O-ring theory became a standard reference in development economics and has been widely taught in graduate economics programs.

Randomized Controlled Trials in Development

Kremer's most transformative contribution to the field of development economics has been his role in pioneering the use of randomized controlled trials to evaluate development interventions. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Kremer and his collaborators conducted a series of field experiments in Kenya that systematically tested which interventions most effectively improved educational and health outcomes for children in low-income settings.

Among the most well-known of these studies was a series of experiments examining ways to improve school attendance and learning in rural Kenya. Kremer and colleagues tested a range of interventions including the provision of free textbooks, school meals programs, and treatments for intestinal parasites (deworming). The results were striking and sometimes counterintuitive. The textbook program, for instance, was found to have limited effects on average test scores, while the deworming program — a relatively low-cost health intervention — produced large improvements in school attendance. These findings demonstrated the power of randomized evaluation to overturn conventional wisdom about development spending and highlighted the importance of evidence-based policymaking.

The deworming research, conducted with Edward Miguel (who later became one of Kremer's most prominent doctoral students), became one of the most influential studies in development economics. It demonstrated that mass deworming of schoolchildren was an extraordinarily cost-effective way to increase school participation, and the findings prompted governments and international organizations to scale up deworming programs reaching hundreds of millions of children worldwide.

Kremer's experimental approach helped establish a broader methodological movement in economics. Together with Banerjee and Duflo, among others, he helped build the infrastructure for conducting large-scale RCTs in developing countries, including through organizations such as Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). This approach fundamentally changed how development economics is conducted, shifting the field toward a more empirical, evidence-based paradigm.

Advance Market Commitments and Vaccine Economics

Beyond education and health interventions at the community level, Kremer made significant contributions to the economics of pharmaceutical development and global health. He was instrumental in developing the concept of advance market commitments (AMCs), a mechanism designed to incentivize the development and distribution of vaccines and other health technologies for diseases that disproportionately affect the developing world. The core idea was that donors could commit to subsidizing the purchase of vaccines at a guaranteed price, thereby creating a viable market for pharmaceutical companies to invest in research and development for diseases like pneumococcal disease and malaria that primarily affect low-income populations.

This proposal moved from academic theory to global policy. In 2009, donors including five nations and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched a $1.5 billion AMC for pneumococcal vaccines, the first practical implementation of the concept. The AMC mechanism was later cited as an important precedent during discussions of vaccine development and distribution for COVID-19.

Agricultural Innovation

Kremer also contributed research on agricultural development, examining how farmers in developing countries adopt new technologies and the barriers that prevent the uptake of productivity-enhancing innovations. His work in this area explored the role of information, credit constraints, and social learning in farmers' decisions about fertilizer use and crop management. These studies provided important evidence for policymakers seeking to improve agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

University of Chicago (2020–present)

In 2020, Kremer left Harvard to join the University of Chicago as University Professor in Economics, one of the university's highest academic distinctions. At Chicago, he became the director of the Development Innovation Lab at the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics, a research center focused on developing and testing scalable innovations for the developing world. He also serves as the faculty director of the Development Economics Center.

At the University of Chicago, Kremer has focused on building institutional infrastructure for development economics research. The Development Innovation Lab operates at the intersection of economics and technology, conducting research on innovations in education, health, agriculture, and other areas with potential for large-scale impact in developing countries. The lab works closely with governments and organizations in low- and middle-income countries to test and scale evidence-based interventions.

Kremer has continued to engage with policy questions at the global level. In 2025, he visited the Indian state of Odisha to discuss development and social initiatives with state officials, including Chief Secretary Anu Garg, reflecting his ongoing engagement with state-level policymaking in developing countries. He also met with officials in Andhra Pradesh to discuss personalized adaptive learning technologies and their potential to enhance students' competency levels.

Kremer has also written on the role economists can play in fostering innovation for social and environmental purposes, arguing that the economics profession has an important role in guiding the development of technologies that serve human needs beyond market demand alone.

Development Innovation Ventures

In addition to his academic work, Kremer serves as the Scientific Director of Development Innovation Ventures (DIV), a program of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). DIV is designed to maximize the impact of development spending through rigorous impact evaluation, funding innovations at various stages of development and using evidence to determine which interventions merit scaling up. The program reflects Kremer's longstanding commitment to bridging the gap between academic research and practical development policy.

Other Scholarly Contributions

Kremer's research interests extend beyond the areas for which he is best known. He has published work on topics including the economics of cultural property protection. In 2025, he co-authored a paper with Tom Wilkening in the Journal of Economic Perspectives examining whether long-term leases could serve as a mechanism for protecting antiquities, exploring alternative policy frameworks for the preservation of cultural heritage.

Personal Life

Michael Kremer is married to Rachel Glennerster, an economist who has held senior positions in development policy and research, including serving as Chief Economist at the Department for International Development (DFID) and executive director of J-PAL. Their shared professional focus on development economics has made them one of the more prominent couples in the field.

Kremer is a member of Giving What We Can, an organization whose members pledge to donate a significant portion of their income to effective charities. This commitment reflects the alignment between his research — which seeks to identify the most cost-effective interventions for reducing poverty — and his personal philanthropic choices.

Recognition

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

In October 2019, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that Kremer would share the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty." The Nobel committee recognized that the three laureates had "introduced a new approach to obtaining reliable answers about the best ways to fight global poverty," noting that their research had "considerably improved our ability to fight global poverty" and that "as a direct result of one of their studies, more than five million Indian children have benefited from programmes of remedial tutoring in schools."

The award was also covered by The New York Times, which highlighted the laureates' use of field experiments to test practical interventions in education, health care, and other areas affecting the world's poorest populations.

MacArthur Fellowship

Earlier in his career, Kremer was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (commonly known as the "genius grant"), recognizing his creative and innovative contributions to the field of development economics.

Other Honors

Kremer is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 2008 and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has served on the editorial boards of several leading economics journals and has been a co-founder of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), a nonprofit research network focused on development economics.

Legacy

Michael Kremer's influence on development economics operates on multiple levels. At the theoretical level, his O-ring theory provided an elegant framework for understanding persistent global inequality and the complementarity of skills in economic production. At the methodological level, his early adoption and promotion of randomized controlled trials helped establish a new standard for evidence in the social sciences — one that has been compared in its significance to the randomized clinical trial in medicine. The "randomization revolution" in development economics, of which Kremer was a principal architect, has fundamentally altered how governments, international organizations, and NGOs evaluate the effectiveness of their programs.

The practical policy impact of Kremer's research has been substantial. His deworming studies contributed to the creation of large-scale deworming programs reaching hundreds of millions of children across Africa and Asia. His work on advance market commitments helped create new mechanisms for incentivizing pharmaceutical innovation for neglected diseases, a concept that has become part of the standard toolkit of global health policy. His more recent work on personalized adaptive learning technologies has engaged education policymakers in countries such as India.

Kremer has also had a significant impact through his role as a doctoral advisor. His former students include Edward Miguel, Seema Jayachandran, Karthik Muralidharan, Nava Ashraf, Benjamin Olken, Dina Pomeranz, Emily Oster, and Asim Ijaz Khwaja, many of whom have become leading researchers in development economics and related fields at major universities worldwide.

Through the Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago, Kremer continues to work on building the institutional infrastructure for evidence-based development policy, seeking to bridge the gap between academic research and the practical challenges facing low- and middle-income countries.