Sendhil Mullainathan to the CFPB

The Treasury Department announced the hiring of senior leadership for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Among the hires: Harvard University economist Sendhil Mullainathan .

The leading behavioral economist of his generation, his research has focused on how people’s biases and weaknesses lead them to make bad economic decisions. He is also a founder, with Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, of MIT’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab.

His research has provided much of the intellectual foundation for the establishment of the CFPB, which is tasked with making “markets for consumer financial products and services work for Americans.”

Here is more.