معرفی
Jonathan J. Morduch is a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, where he has been a faculty member for many years. He serves as Executive Director of the Financial Access Initiative, which he co-founded in 2006 with economists Dean Karlan and Sendhil Mullainathan. His academic work bridges economics and public policy with a focus on practical applications for poverty reduction and financial inclusion.
Morduch's research centers on poverty, inequality, and household finance, with particular expertise in microfinance and financial inclusion. His work emphasizes high-frequency financial data to understand how low-income households manage their finances, moving beyond traditional annual income measures to capture the volatility and instability that characterize financial lives of the poor. He pioneered the financial diaries methodology through projects like Portfolios of the Poor (documenting financial lives of the poor in Bangladesh, India, and South Africa) and the US Financial Diaries (tracking financial lives of American households).
Morduch's publications reveal a consistent theme: poverty is not merely about low income but about the combination of insufficiency × instability × illiquidity. His research shows how financial tools can help households manage volatility, and how traditional microfinance approaches often miss the broader household financial needs beyond business investment. His recent work explores cash transfers, mobile money, and how financial instability affects health outcomes.
- Honorary doctorate from the Free University of Brussels for work on microfinance
- Axiom Best Business Book Silver Award 2018 for The Financial Diaries
- Named one of the best economics books of 2017 by Fivebooks
Morduch has secured significant funding from organizations including the Ford Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Omidyar Network. His research has influenced both academic thinking and policy discussions around financial inclusion, poverty measurement, and the appropriate role of subsidy in social enterprises. He has advised governments and international organizations on financial inclusion policies and has been instrumental in shifting the conversation from microfinance as entrepreneurial finance to microfinance as household finance.
