Dean Karlan is an American development economist. He is Professor of Economics at Yale University and a Research Fellow at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Karlan is also the President and Founder of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), a New Haven, Connecticut based research outfit dedicated to creating and evaluating solutions to social and international development problems. Along with economists Jonathan Morduch and Sendhil Mullainathan, Karlan serves as Director of the Financial Access Initiative (FAI), a consortium of researchers focused on substantially expanding access to quality financial services for low-income individuals. He is also a co-founder of stickK.com.
Karlan received a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology., an M.B.A. and an M.P.P. from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in International Affairs from the University of Virginia.