A LEAP forward at Harvard

Here is an email announcement I received today from my colleague Raj Chetty:

I am writing to introduce the Lab for Economic Applications and Policy
(LEAP) at Harvard. The mission of LEAP is facilitate policy-relevant applied research, with the ultimate aim of injecting scientific evidence into policy debates.

LEAP has three components. First, we fund faculty and student research, such as pilot field experiments or empirical studies that could not be easily or quickly funded through the NSF or other grant agencies. The LEAP executive committee (Larry Katz, Guido Imbens, Brigitte Madrian, and myself) will review applications on a rolling basis and authorize funding within 4-6 weeks. The application form is available at our temporary website:
http://economics.harvard.edu/leap. Please spread the word about these new funding opportunities among your graduate students.

Second, we run a visitor program that brings in two leading researchers every semester to visit the department and teach short topics courses related to their research. This year’s visitors are Jon Skinner, Stephen Coate, Doug Staiger, and Richard Blundell.

Finally, we have a cluster of offices on the 2nd floor of Littauer that includes a lounge to facilitate interaction among faculty and students.
This space includes visitor offices as well as a rotating office used by junior faculty at HKS and HBS. We plan to hold a small inaugural reception in the lounge at 3:15 on Wed Feb. 10 before the labor/pf seminar, and invite you to join us then to learn more about LEAP.

We look forward to working with you at LEAP!

Raj Chetty
Guido Imbens
Larry Katz
Brigitte Madrian