Robert M. Townsend | |
|---|---|
| Born | Robert Morris Townsend (1948-04-23)April 23, 1948 (age 77) Cambridge,Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Duke University (BA) University of Minnesota (PhD) |
| Known for | costly state verification revelation principle turnpike model of money |
| Awards | Frisch Medal |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Economics |
| Institutions | Carnegie Mellon University University of Chicago Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Doctoral advisor | Neil Wallace |
Robert Morris Townsend (born April 23, 1948) is an Americaneconomist andprofessor; he is the Elizabeth & James Killian Professor of Economics atMassachusetts Institute of Technology.[1] Prior to joining MIT, he was the Charles E. Merriam Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Economics at theUniversity of Chicago where he remained aresearch associate (professor) until 2018.
Robert Townsend was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1948. He is the brother of John S. Townsend, a professor of physics atHarvey Mudd College.
Townsend received his B.A. fromDuke University in 1970 and Ph.D. from theUniversity of Minnesota in 1975. He began teaching atCarnegie Mellon University in 1975, and became a professor at theUniversity of Chicago in 1985 where he stayed full-time until moving to MIT in 2008. From 1987 to 1989 Townsend was also editor of theJournal of Political Economy.
In addition to his professorships, Townsend is the Principal Investigator and Project Director of theEnterprise Initiative, funded by theJohn Templeton Foundation, and the Principal Investigator of theConsortium on Financial Systems and Poverty, funded by theBill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Additionally, he is a consultant for numerous institutions, including theFederal Reserve Bank of Chicago, theWorld Bank, andBanco de España.
Townsend is a fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences and ofThe Econometric Society, as well as an Elected Member of theNational Academy of Sciences. He was the recipient of theJean-Jacques Laffont Prize in 2011, and aFrisch Medal in 1998 for his work on village India and in 2012 for the structural evaluation of a large-scale microfinance program in Thailand; Townsend is the award's only two-time winner.
Townsend began his work as a theorist ingeneral equilibrium models and contract theory/mechanism design, but is known primarily for his work onrevelation principle,costly state verification, optimal multi-period contracts, decentralization of economies with private information, models of money with spatially separated agents, and forecasting the forecasts of others. His contributions in econometrics include the study of risk and insurance in developing countries.
Since 1997, Townsend'sThai Project has undertaken large scale village surveys in Thailand to analyze the interaction between household decisions and community behavior at the level of families, villages, regions, and the nation. The Townsend Thai study was the first of its kind and has been the stepping stone for many other applied and theoretical projects in economic development and contract theory. Townsend's work has demonstrated innovation in the combination of theory and data, as well as the ability to work across various sub-fields. A documentary film about his research and field work in Thailand, titledEmerging Thailand: The Spirit of Small Enterprise, was created in 2012.[2]
In 2012, a series of documentary films was created about the people and research behind the Townsend Thai Project. The series consists of one main film and a set of smaller, shorter films that highlight the work of entrepreneurs in rural Thailand.
