Robert M. Townsend
| Robert M. Townsend | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 23, 1948 Cambridge, MA, USA |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | Economics |
| Institutions |
MIT University of Chicago Carnegie Mellon University |
| Alma mater |
University of Minnesota Duke University |
| Doctoral advisor | Neil Wallace |
| Known for |
costly state verification revelation principle turnpike model of money |
| Notable awards | Frisch Medal, The Econometric Society, for the papers "Risk and Insurance in Village India" (1998) and "A Structural Evaluation of a Large-Scale Quasi-Experimental Microfinance Initiative (2012), and the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize in Economics, Industrial Economics Institute and the city of Toulouse |
Robert Morris Townsend (born April 23, 1948) is an American economist and professor, the Elizabeth & James Killian Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to joining MIT, he was the Charles E. Merriam Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he remains a Research Professor.
Townsend received his B.A. from Duke University in 1970 and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1975. He began teaching at Carnegie Mellon University in 1975, and became a Professor at the University of Chicago in 1985 where he stayed full-time until moving to MIT in 2008. From 1987 to 1989 Townsend was also editor of the Journal of Political Economy.
In addition to his professorships, Townsend is the Principal Investigator and Project Director of the Enterprise Initiative, funded by the John Templeton Foundation, and the Principal Investigator of the Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Additionally, he is a consultant for numerous institutions, including the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the World Bank, and Banco de España.
Townsend is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of The Econometric Society, as well as an Elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was the recipient of the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize in 2011, and a Frisch Medal in 1998 for his work on village India and in 2012 for the structural evaluation of a large-scale microfinance program in Thailand; Townsend is the award's only two-time winner.
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