Michael Andrew Clemens (born c. 1972) is an American development economist. He is a senior fellow and research manager at the

Center for Global Development The Center for Global Development (CGD) is a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C., and London that focuses on international development. History It was founded in November 2001 by former senior U.S. official Edward W. Scott, dire ...

(CGD), a Washington D.C.-based think tank, where he leads the Migration and Development initiative and serves as CGD's Research Manager. Clemens is also a Research Fellow of IZA, the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany, and an affiliate of the

Financial Access Initiative The Financial Access Initiative (FAI) is an American consortium, established in 2006, of researchers at New York University (NYU), Yale University, Harvard University and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) focused on finding answers to how fina ...

, a research center housed at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

Research

Clemens' current work focuses on the effects of international migration on people from and in developing countries. Clemens leads the Migration and Development Initiative. One of his most-cited works on migration is ''Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk'' published in the ''

Journal of Economic Perspectives The ''Journal of Economic Perspectives'' (JEP) is an economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the pra ...

'' in 2011. In this paper, he investigates why economists spend much more time studying the movement of goods and capital and much less time studying the movement of people. He sketches a four-point research agenda on the effects of emigration. Clemens has also written about aid effectiveness, including an article for the ''Journal of Development Effectiveness'': "When does rigorous impact evaluation make a difference? The case of the Millennium Villages." Using a high-profile case, the Millennium Villages Project, an experimental and intensive package intervention to spark economic development in rural Africa, he and his co-authors illustrate the benefits of rigorous impact evaluation by showing the estimates of the project’s effects depend heavily in evaluation method. He also wrote Counting Chickens When They Hatch: Timing and the Effects of Aid on Growth for the Royal Economic Society’s ''

Economic Journal ''The Economic Journal'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics published on behalf of the Royal Economic Society by Oxford University Press. The journal was established in 1891 and publishes papers from all areas of economics.The edit ...

'', examining the cross-country relationship between foreign aid and economic growth.

Initiatives

Following the

2010 Haiti earthquake A catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest department, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's ca ...

, Clemens led an effort to make Haitians eligible for H-2A and H-2B low-skill temporary work visa program arguing that the economic impact of migration would be far more beneficial than any foreign assistance or aid to the country. In January 2012, the US government added

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and s ...

to the list of countries eligible to participate in the H-2 visa program.

References

External links

CGD expert profile

Google Scholar profile

The Biggest Idea in Development that No One Really Tried (VIDEO)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Clemens, Michael 1970s births Living people 21st-century American economists American development economists California Institute of Technology alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Harvard University alumni Center for Global Development Migration economists