Michael Callen

Michael Callen’s research uses experiments to identify ways to address accountability and service delivery failures in the public sector, working primarily in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. His primary interests are political economy, development economics, and experimental economics.

Before coming to the London School of Economics, Callen was an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the University of California San Diego, an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. As a post doc, Callen was a visiting faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley Center for Effective Global Action and the UC San Diego Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation.

Callen has received research grants from the International Growth Center (IGC), South Asia Institute, Harvard University, Department for International Development, Consortium for Financial Systems and Poverty, Policy Design and Evaluation Laboratory, Center for Effective Global Action and the Development Innovation Lab (UC Berkeley). He also won the Innovate Award from the Development Innovation Lab from UC Berkeley.

Callen earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego and his B.Sc. in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.