Melanie Morten

Melanie Morten is a Research Associate at Stanford University's Department of Economics within the School of Humanities and Sciences. Her work bridges development economics and spatial economics, focusing on migration, risk sharing, labor markets, and trade dynamics in low- and middle-income countries.

• Current Position: Research Associate, Stanford University
• Research Domains: Development Economics, Spatial Economics, Migration
• Collaborative Projects: Network-based hiring, border wall impacts, seasonal migration subsidies in Bangladesh

Her research explores how spatial frictions like migration costs and infrastructure affect economic outcomes, including productivity, trade, and risk sharing. She employs randomized controlled trials, structural models, and field experiments to analyze migration's role in informal insurance, labor market integration, and urban development.

Recent work examines gentrification's inequality effects, transportation's influence on migration patterns, and network hiring's dual impact on firms in developing economies. The evolving focus spans from localized labor dynamics to global migration policy implications.

Morten has contributed to leading journals and working paper series, with media coverage from The Economist, The Washington Post, and VoxEU. She co-leads the Stanford Guestworker Migration Initiative, applying her findings to real-world policy challenges.

• Key Collaborators: Gharad Bryan, Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, Arun Chandrasekhar
• Policy Relevance: Labor mobility, regional inequality, development strategies
• Current Projects: Spatial economics frameworks for urbanizing economies