Michael Kremer

Co-Faculty Director
University Professor in Economics, University of Chicago;
2019 Nobel Prize Recipient ​

Michael Kremer

Co-Faculty Director
University Professor in Economics, University of Chicago;
2019 Nobel Prize Recipient ​

Prof. Michael Kremer directs the Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago, where he is an Economics Professor. He is the joint winner of Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (Economics Nobel Prize) 2019, for the “experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”

Kremer’s work focuses on innovation, including in education, health, water, finance, agriculture. He has also worked on how to design institutions to accelerate innovation, including through Advance Market Commitments (AMC) and social innovation funds.

Kremer actively translates his academic work into real-world programs. He helped to design an AMC for a pneumococcal vaccine. Subsequently, three vaccines have been approved, purchased through the AMC, and rolled out in 60 countries, saving an estimated 700,000 lives. As part of the Accelerating Health Technologies group, he conducted research and advised governments and international organizations on how to accelerate vaccination against COVID-19. His work on school-based deworming informed India’s national deworming day, which treats over 275 million children each year. His work on safe drinking water led to the Dispensers for Safe Water Program, which reaches 9 million people via the NGO Evidence Action. He is also collaborating with the Government of India on the integration of in-line chlorination to ensure safe water delivery in rural water supply systems. He is a co-founder of Precision Development, which leverages digital technology to improve productivity and incomes for small-holder farmers in developing countries. He is also co-director of the Human-Centered Weather Forecasts (HCF) initiative, which aims to expand access to weather forecasts in low- and middle-income countries. So far this initiative has supported partners to send forecasts to 38 million farmers in India.

Kremer was a co-founder and served as Scientific Director of USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures (DIV), an open, tiered, evidence-based fund that supports innovation for development.