Congratulations to Dean Karlan

Yale economist Dean Karlan recently received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers — the highest honor given by the federal government to young researchers. I believe the prize comes with half a million dollars of research support to use over the next five years.

Dean has been doing important and innovative work, often using field experiments to answer questions related to financial decisions in developing countries.

I would describe Dean as an economist who is under-appreciated by the profession, although he was listed as one of the young hot shots in the field by the Times.