Ideas42

Ideas42 was established in June 2008 by Sendhil Mullainathan (Harvard University), Antoinette Schoar (MIT), Simeon Djankov (IFC), Eldar Shafir (Princeton), Jeffrey Kling (Brookings), and Michael Kremer (Harvard) as a Social Science Research and Development laboratory at Harvard University, with the goal of using scientific insights to design innovative policies and products, both domestically and internationally. The initial sponsors were Harvard University and IFC (World Bank Group). Recent research in psychology and economics has uncovered important, and sometimes surprising, drivers of human behavior. Ideas42 attempts to apply these insights to the understanding of the economic lives of people. Their innovations have produced new solutions in the areas of financial access for the poor, harvesting technologies in developing countries, the choice of health coverage in the United States, and educational opportunities in low-income communities.