Daniel Putman

Daniel Putman is an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University (MSU) with a joint tenure appointment in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics and the Department of Media and Information. His research focuses on the intersection of microeconomic development, social economics, and behavioral economics, particularly examining how social networks and digital technologies influence vulnerability, resilience, and risk responses among marginalized populations. Before joining MSU, he held postdoctoral roles at the University of Pennsylvania and Innovation for Poverty Action.

Putman holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural & Resource Economics from the University of California, Davis (2020). His work bridges computational social science and applied economics, leveraging big data and advanced methodologies to address challenges in poverty prediction, digital fraud prevention, and market regulation. He has contributed to policy-relevant projects such as the Kenya Digital Credit Market Inquiry and developed toolkits for translating transactional data into actionable consumer protection strategies.

His research portfolio spans topics like mobile phone metadata analysis for poverty measurement, endogeneity issues in sports economics, and behavioral experiments in Nigerian microenterprise fraud. His interdisciplinary approach integrates network theory, econometrics, and computational methods to inform policy in development economics and financial inclusion.