Karthik Muralidharan

Karthik Muralidharan is an economics professor at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), where his research focuses on global development. He synthesized insights from more than two decades of research and practice in his book, "Accelerating India’s Development," laying out a conceptual and practical roadmap to accelerate development both in India and globally.

Prof. Muralidharan's research spans development, public, and labor economics with a focus on improving the effectiveness of public spending in the social sector. His research program is characterized by large-scale randomized experiments conducted in partnership with governments to study the impact of programs and policies at scale. His research has been published in leading economics journals including the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and Journal of Political Economy and has also been featured in global media outlets, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and the Economist in addition to several leading Indian newspapers.

Prof. Muralidharan is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); on the Board of Directors of the Poverty Action Lab at MIT, where he is co-chair of the education research program; and a Fellow and Board Member of the Bureau of Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD). He is actively involved in policy advising and capacity building in India at both the central and state government level, writes a column on economic policy for the Hindustan Times, and teaches a popular course on the Indian Economy at UCSD.

Born and raised in India, Prof. Muralidharan earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Harvard University, a Master of Philosophy degree in economics from University of Cambridge (UK), and his PhD in economics, also from Harvard.