Michael Clemens

Michael Clemens is a research fellow at the Center for Global Development.

His current research focuses on the effects of international migration on people from and in developing countries. Michael joined the Center after completing his PhD in Economics at Harvard, where his fields were economic development and public finance, and he wrote his dissertation in economic history.

In addition to his work at CGD he serves as an Affiliated Associate Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University. His past writings have focused on the effects of foreign aid, determinants of capital flows and the effects of tariff policy in the 19th century and the historical determinants of school system expansion. Clemens has served as a consultant for the World Bank, Bain & Co., the Environmental Defense Fund, and the United Nations Development Program. He has lived and worked in Brazil, Colombia, and Turkey.

The Center for Global Development is an independent, nonprofit policy research organization that is dedicated to reducing global poverty and inequality and to making globalization work for the poor. Through a combination of research and strategic outreach, the Center actively engages policymakers and the public to influence the policies of the United States, other rich countries, and such institutions as the World Bank, the IMF, and the World Trade Organization to improve the economic and social development prospects in poor countries. CGD was recently ranked among the world’s top think tanks (number 15 out of several thousand such research organizations) in an independent survey-based ranking published in Foreign Policy magazine.