Professor Melissa Dell Wins the 5th Calvó-Armengol International Prize in Economics

September 25, 2017
Melissa Dell

Prof. Dell was chosen for her pathbreaking research analysing historical data and causal patterns to show how political institutions and social systems function well or poorly.

The Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, along with the Government of Andorra and the Credit Andorrà Foundation awards the Calvó-Armengol Prize every two years to an economist or other social scientist who is not older than 40 years, for his or her contributions to the understanding of social structure and its implications for economic interactions. This is the fifth time the prize has been awarded.  The previous recipients are Matthew Gentzkow (2016), Raj Chetty (2014), Roland Fryer (2012), Esther Duflo (2010).

From the Prize Announcement of the Barcelona GSE:

The committee states that “Despite her young age, Dell’s research is already considered pathbreaking in illuminating how political institutions function. Her work combines historical data with clever means of identifying causal patterns in order to understand what leads political and social systems to function well or poorly. Her highly original, important research provides careful and deep new insights into areas that defined Toni Calvó's research program.”

Some of Professor Dell’s most well-known research contributions include:

  • How political changes in Mexico impacted drug wars and network patterns of trade
  • How a forced-labor mining system from centuries ago had a lasting effect on political and social institutions in Peru
  • How US military strategies in Vietnam had a lasting impact on that country’s institutions
  • A variety of studies detailing how weather patterns and temperatures affect economic productivity

Melissa Dell is Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard University. She has been a Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. She received her PhD from MIT, MPhil from Oxford, and her BA from Harvard, all in Economics. She has been a Rhodes Scholar and a Sloan Fellow.