Melissa Dell

Melissa Dell is a Professor of Economics at Harvard University, affiliated with the Department of Economics. Her research focuses on Development Economics and Political Economy, with an emphasis on the interplay between the state, non-state actors, and economic development. She has examined the relationship between government crackdowns and drug violence in Mexico, as well as the persistence of poverty in Mexico and Peru. Dell holds a Ph.D. in economics from MIT, a Bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Harvard University, and an M. Phil. with Distinction from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She is also a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Global Scholar in the Institutions, Organizations and Growth program at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Melissa Dell is a computational economist and economic historian whose research focuses on development economics, with an emphasis on understanding the long-term impacts of historical events and policies on economic outcomes. Her work explores how factors such as climate, colonial institutions, and political violence shape economic development. Dell's research combines quantitative methods with historical data to analyze topics like the effects of temperature shocks on growth, the legacy of extractive economies, and the role of labor displacement in shaping economic trajectories. She also contributes to the development of computational tools for analyzing historical texts and documents.