Regular biography
Emily Breza is a Professor of Economics at Harvard University, affiliated with the Department of Economics. She joined the department as an Assistant Professor in January 2017. Breza earned her PhD in Economics from MIT and her BA from Yale University. Prior to Harvard, she was a faculty member at Columbia Business School in the Finance and Economics Division. Her research interests include development economics, social networks, and household finance, with a focus on the social and behavioral aspects of interactions with credit and labor markets.
Scholar-generated biography
Emily Breza is a researcher in Development Economics, Social Networks, Development Finance, and Household Finance. Her work explores how social networks influence economic behavior, particularly in the context of financial inclusion and development. Breza's research includes the impact of microfinance on poverty traps, the role of reputation in savings mechanisms, and the effects of formal credit markets on social network structures. She also investigates financial contracting, labor market dynamics, and the dissemination of public health messages, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her studies often combine experimental methods with large-scale data to understand economic and social outcomes.