He is interested in understanding whether poverty has particular psychological and neurobiological consequences, and whether these consequences, in turn, affect economic behavior. His research combines laboratory experiments with randomized controlled trials of development programs. Johannes has a BA in Psychology, Physiology and Philosophy from Oxford, a PhD in Neurobiology from Harvard, and a PhD in Economics from Zurich, and was previously a Prize Fellow in Economics at Harvard and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT. In 2011 Johannes started the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics in Nairobi, a research facility for behavioral economics studies with respondents from the Nairobi informal settlements.