Melissa Dell


Melissa Dell is an economist and Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Her research interests include development economics, political economy, and economic history.
In 2014, the International Monetary Fund named Dell among the 25 Brightest Young Economists. In 2018, she was awarded the Elaine Bennett Research Prize and The Economist named her one of "the decade’s eight best young economists." She was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 2020.

Biography

Dell grew up in Enid, Oklahoma, where she attended Oklahoma Bible Academy. Despite difficulties completing races because of her poor eyesight, she was a champion long distance runner in high school, setting a state record in the 3000-meter distance. She was the first student from her high school to attend Harvard University, and established an organization, "College Matters," and a book, "The College Matters Guide to Getting Into the Elite College of Your Dreams," to offer practical advice to ambitious students from similar backgrounds.
She graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 2005 and attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar receiving a M.Phil. in economics in 2007. In 2012, she completed her Ph.D. in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was a junior member of the Harvard Society of Fellows from 2012 to 2014, and joined the faculty at Harvard in 2014 as an Assistant Professor. She was promoted to Full Professor in 2018.

Research

Melissa Dell's research interests include development economics, economic history and political economy. Her work has mainly focused on explaining economic development through the persistence of historical institutions and climate. She has also investigated the effect of conflict on labor market and political outcomes and vice versa. Much of her research has focused on Latin America and Southeast Asia. She was one of the first economists to use a spatial regression discontinuity design, in her paper on the long-term effects of Peru's Mining Mita.

Selected works