Richard Akresh is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on children's health and education. He has explored the impact of conflict on human capital and health for young children as well as the long-term and intergenerational consequences of exposure to war as a child. He has conducted randomized control trials of alternative ways to deliver cash transfers and early childhood development interventions to poor households in Africa to improve children's health and education. He is also interested in questions about the intergenerational transmission of shocks, household structure, and intra-household bargaining. He is a Research Associate of the NBER, a BREAD Research Affiliate, a Research Fellow at IZA, and a Senior Affiliate at HiCN.

Richard received his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University in 2004. He joined IZA as a Research Affiliate in January 2004 and became a Research Fellow in October 2006.