Jack Willis is Assistant Professor of Economics at Columbia University. He is also a Research Affiliate at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), at the Center for Development Economics and Policy (CDEP), and at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), he is an Affiliated Professor at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He was Visiting Faculty member in 2023 in the framework of Sciences Po's Columbia Alliance Mobility Programme.

He works in development economics, on questions related to the financial lives of the poor, informal contracting and missing markets, and learning and technology adoption. Since the defence of his doctoral dissertation in 2017 at Harvard - for which he was awarded the Padma Desai Dissertation Prize in Economic Science - he has been awarded no fewer than 13 research grants, notably from the Weiss Fund, from USAID, and from NBER Social Learning.

Jack Willlis' website

Professor Willis will be visiting with us throughout the academic year 2025-2026.