Carl Lin is the Associate Dean of Faculty for the Division of Social Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences at Bucknell University, a liberal arts institution in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. He is also a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Economics. In addition, he serves as a Research Fellow at the Center for Research in Econometric Theory and Applications at National Taiwan University and at the China Institute for Income Distribution in Beijing. Prior to joining Bucknell, he was a faculty member at Beijing Normal University. His research lies in labor and development economics, with a focus on minimum wages, inequality, and rural–urban migration in China.

A native of Taiwan, he holds a B.A. in Economics from National Taiwan University and a master's degree from Georgetown University. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

He joined IZA as a Research Affiliate in September 2011 and became a Research Fellow in October 2011.