Melissa Dell | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1983 or 1984 (age 41–42) Enid, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Education | Harvard University (BA) Trinity College, Oxford (MPhil) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD) |
| Children | 2[1] |
| Awards | Sloan Fellowship (2016) Carnegie Fellowship (2017) Calvó-Armengol International Prize (2018) Elaine Bennett Research Prize (2018) John Bates Clark Medal (2020) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Economics |
| Institutions | Harvard University |
| Doctoral advisors | Daron Acemoglu |
| Website | https://scholar.harvard.edu/dell/home |
Melissa Dell (born 1983 or 1984)[citation needed] is an American economist who is the Andrew E. Furer Professor of Economics atHarvard University. Her research interests includedevelopment economics,computational economics,political economy, andeconomic history.
Dell grew up inEnid, Oklahoma, where she attendedOklahoma Bible Academy.[2] 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.[3] As of 2010, she was anultramarathon (100 km) runner.[4] Her parents worked as civilian contractors at Vance Air Force Base, in the parts shop and at the daycare.[5] She was the first student from her high school to attendHarvard University,[6] which she was able to attend because of generous financial aid.[7] There, she established an organization, "College Matters,"[8] and wrote 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.[3]
She graduatedsumma cum laude fromHarvard University in 2005 (B.A. economics), where she competed on the track team, and attendedTrinity College, Oxford, as aRhodes Scholar, receiving anM.Phil. in economics in 2007.[8] In 2012, she completed herPh.D. in economics at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology. She was a Junior Fellow of theHarvard Society of Fellows from 2012 to 2014,[9] and joined the faculty at Harvard in 2014 as an assistant professor. She was promoted to Full Professor in 2018.[10]
Dell's research interests includedevelopment economics,economic history, andpolitical economy, with a major focus on areas ofLatin America andSoutheast Asia. The main focus of her work has been explaining economic development through the persistence of historical institutions.[11][12]
One of her most cited research papers, “The Persistent Effects of Peru’s Mining Mita,” published in the scholarly journalEconometrica in 2010, discussesPeru's Mining Mita and the long-term effects of colonial-era forced labor on the local populations centuries later.[13]
For example, in her paper on the long-term effects ofPeru's mining mita, she showed that current development outcomes were influenced by whether regions were included in forced labor policies that ended in the early 1800s. This paper was also methodologically important, as it was one of the first in economics to use a spatialregression discontinuity design.[6] Dell has also investigated the effect of conflict on labor market and political outcomes and vice versa.[14] She also has influential work on the economic effects of climate, especially for developing economies.[15][16][non-primary source needed] Much of her research has focused onLatin America andSoutheast Asia.
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