Michael Clemens is professor in the Department of Economics at George Mason University, and a Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He is also a Research Fellow at IZA, an External Research Fellow at the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration at University College London, and a Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development.

He primarily studies the economic effects and causes of migration around the world. He has published on migration, development, impact evaluation, and research replication, in peer-reviewed academic journals including the American Economic Review, and his research has been awarded the Royal Economic Society Prize. He has served as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Population Economics and World Development. He is the author of the book The Walls of Nations, forthcoming from Columbia University Press.

Previously, Clemens made his professional home for 20 years at the Center for Global Development. He has also been an Affiliated Associate Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University, a visiting scholar at New York University, and a consultant for the World Bank, Bain & Co., the Environmental Defense Fund, and the United Nations Development Program. He has lived and worked in Colombia, Brazil, and Turkey. He received his PhD from the Department of Economics at Harvard University, specializing in economic development, public finance, and economic history.

He joined IZA as a Research Fellow in September 2014.