He is a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, following his tenure as Drummond Professor of Political Economy from 2010 to 2020.
Crawford majored in economics at Princeton University, graduating Summa cum laude in 1972.
The Econometric Society conferred fellowship to him in 1990, American Academy of Arts and Sciences elected him fellow in 2003, and the British Academy and the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory followed suit in 2011 and 2012, respectively.
[11] Crawford's research focuses on behavioural game theory, specifically bargaining and communication, experimental economics and matching.
His work on strategic information transmission has been seminal in the field of strategic communication in economic games, with his 1982 paper (co-authored with Joel Sobel) establishing the concept of cheap talk in game theory.