I study economic opportunity, inequality, and the future of work
meet anna gifty opoku-agyeman
Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is a doctoral candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School studying public policy and economics. Her research focuses on topics in labor economics, inequality, and behavioral science. She specifically uses experiments and big data to learn about how bias can be disrupted in a variety of workplace settings.
She is a doctoral fellow at the National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, Give Black Alliance, the Stone Program in Wealth Distribution, Inequality & Social Policy, and The Roosevelt Institute. She is also affiliated with Harvard Kennedy School's Women and Public Policy Center and the Institute for Quantitative Science. Her research has received funding from Pivotal Ventures, JPAL North America, the Russell Sage Foundation, The Policy Academies, and the Center for Black Entrepreneurship among others. In 2025, she earned Harvard Kennedy School’s highest teaching awards: Dean’s Excellence in Student Teaching and Distinction in Student Teaching.
In 2019, Anna Gifty graduated with a B.A. in Mathematics with a minor in Economics from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. In 2025, she earned her M.A. in public policy and economics from Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to Harvard, she worked at Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The Urban Institute, and PNC Bank.
FORTHCOMING
Belief Updating, Observability, & Race in the Labor Market (with Emma Rackstraw)
Abstract: Inaccurate beliefs about racial gaps in productivity can have wide-ranging implications in the workplace. In an online experiment, we hired a nationally representative sample of Prolific workers to assess the performance of Amazon Mechanical Turk workers on a math test based on stylized resumes. Participants randomly assigned to a Black primary investigator evaluated Black workers as more productive than participants assigned to a White primary investigator. This study provides suggestive evidence on how the racial identity of supervisors may shift perceived racial differences in productivity and how Black leaders can disrupt belief-based discrimination against Black workers.
Coming soon to American Economic Association’s Papers and Proceedings
Works in Progress
Manager Identity and the Workplace (with Emma Rackstraw)
Diversity in Academia (with Anjali Adukia, Elisa Xi Chen, Marieke Kleemans, and Christian Valencia)
Social Movements and Firm behavior (with Adaye Yvan N'guettia)
Disseration COMMITTEE
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DR. IRIS BOHNET
Committee Co-Chair
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DR. LARRY KATZ
Commitee Co-Chair
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DR. ALEX IMAS
Committee Member
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DR. RAJ CHETTY
Committee Member