| Faculty Biography & Research
Marcus Alexis
Professor Emeritus of Economics
PhD, University of Minnesota, 1959
Urban economics - Public policy
"Assessing Fifty Years of African American Economic Status 1940-1990", American Economic Review 88 (1998): 368-75.
"Relocating Core Competencies: The Case of Banking and Financial Services", in H. Thomas and D. O'Neal (eds.), Strategic Interaction, New York: Wiley (1996).
Alexis's research interests are urban economics and public policy (race and poverty in particular), and regulation and management strategy (especially surface transportation, rail and trucking).
Lori A. Beaman
Assistant Professor of Economics
PhD, Yale University, 2007
Development economics - Labor economics
"Social Networks and the Dynamics of Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from Refugees Resettled in the U.S.", mimeo, Yale University, 2007.
Beaman's research interests lie in the intersection of development and
labor economics. Her current work focuses on how social networks
affect labor market outcomes in a dynamic context.
Ronald Braeutigam
Harvey Kapnick Professor of Business Institutions
Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education
PhD, Stanford University, 1976
Microeconomics - Industrial organization
"Learning About Transport Costs", in J. Gomez-Ibanez, W.Tye and C. Winston (eds.), Essays in Transportation Economics and Policy: A Handbook in Honor of John R. Meyer, Washington,D.C.: Bookings Institution (1999).
Microeconomics New York: John Wiley & Sons (2005).
Braeutigam's research interests are in the fields of microeconomics and industrial organization. His work has focused on the restructuring of traditionally regulated industries, many of which have been deregulated in the past quarter century. He has published many articles analyzing the effects of government policy on prices, market structure, economic welfare and income distribution in various industries, including the natural gas, electric power, telephone, railroad, motor carrier, and space transportation sectors of the American economy. He is a past-President of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics.
Francisco Buera
Assistant Professor of Economics
PhD, University of Chicago, 2004
Macroeconomics - Development economics
"Optimal Maturity of Government Debt without State Contingent Bonds" [with J. P. Nicolini], Journal of Monetary Economics 51 (2004): 531-554.
"The Rise of the Service Economy", mimeo, Northwestern University (2006).
Buera is a macroeconomist with a particular interest in entrepreneurship and economic development. His research has focused on understanding the determinants of new firms' creation and entrepreneurial behavior. He has also studied the use of debt maturity as an instrument of fiscal policy.
Jannet Chang
Lecturer in Economics
PhD, University of Illinois, 2004
Political economy - Public economics
Chang is an applied microeconomists with a primary interest in voting. She is currently studying the impact of voting costs on voter composition, voting outcome, as well as welfare of different voting mechanisms. She has also worked on intergenerational transfers in economies with aging populations.
Lawrence Christiano
Alfred W. Chase Professor of Business Institutions
PhD, Columbia University, 1982
Macroeconomics
"Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy" [with M. Eichenbaum and C. Evans], Journal of Political Economy 113 (2005): 1-45.
"The Great Depression and the Friedman-Schwartz Hypothesis" [with R. Motto and M. Rostagno], Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 35 (2003): 1119-1198.
Christiano's research has been focused primarily on the problem of determining how the government's monetary and fiscal instruments ought to respond to shocks over the business cycle. This research has two parts; one involves formulating and estimating an empirically plausible model of the macroeconomy, and the second involves developing economic concepts and computational methods for determining optimal policy in an equilibrium model.
Robert Coen
Professor Emeritus of Economics
PhD, Northwestern University, 1967
Macroeconomics - Public finance
"Is European Unemployment Classical or Keynesian?" [with B. Hickman], American Economic Review 78(1988): 188-93.
"Demand Management, Real Wage Rigidity, and Unemployment" [with B.
Hickman], in M. Dutta (ed.), Economics, Econometrics, and the LINK Essays in Honor of Lawrence R. Klein, Amsterdam: Elsevier (1995).
Coen's research focuses on constructing annual macroeconometric models whose supply sides can be solved for full-employment growth paths, including potential output, the natural rate of unemployment, and the full-employment real wage. These paths provide benchmarks for assessing actual economic performance and for decomposing unemployment into Keynesian, classical, and natural components. Simulations of the full models indicate how unemployment and its composition respond to fiscal, monetary, and supply shocks.
Eddie Dekel
William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Economics
PhD, Harvard University, 1986
Microeconomic theory
"Representing Preferences with a Unique Subjective State Space" [with B. Lipman and A. Rustichini], Econometrica 69 (2001): 891-934.
"Sequential Voting Procedures in Symmetric Binary Elections" [with M. Piccione], Journal of Political Economy 108 (2000): 34-55.
Dekel's areas of research are single-person decision theory and game theory. His research has focused on axiomatic models of decision making and on foundations of solution concepts in games. He has worked extensively on models of knowledge, common knowledge, and unawareness, and on evolutionary models of strategic interaction. He has also worked on auctions and on voting.
Matthias Doepke
Associate Professor of Economics
PhD, University of Chicago, 2000
Macroeconomics - Development economics
"Inflation and the Redistribution of Nominal Wealth" [with M. Schneider], Journal of Political Economy, 114 (2006): 1069-1097.
"The Macroeconomics of Child Labor Regulation" [with F. Zilibotti],
American Economic Review 95 (2005): 1492-1524.
Doepke's research is focused on understanding the determinants of long-run economic growth. He has worked on the interaction of economic growth and demographic change, the role of political and social reforms during the transition to growth, and cultural factors in economic development. He is also interested in monetary economics, and in particular the redistributional effects of inflation.
Martin Eichenbaum
Ethel and John Lindgren Professor of Economics
PhD, University of Minnesota, 1981
Macroeconomics - International economics
"Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy" [with L. Christiano and C. Evans], Journal of Political Economy 113 (2005): 1 - 45.
"Why is Inflation so Low After Large Devaluations?" [with A. Burstein and Sergio Rebelo], Journal of Political Economy 113 (2005): 742-784.
Eichenbaum's research focuses on understanding aggregate economic fluctuations. He is currently studying the causes and consequences of exchange rate fluctuations, as well as the effect of monetary policy on postwar United States business cycles.
Jeffrey C. Ely
Professor of Economics
PhD, University of California, Berkeley, 1996
Microeconomic theory
"Bad Reputation" [with J. Valimaki], Quarterly Journal of Economics 118 (2003): 785-814.
"Foundations of Dominant-Strategy Mechanisms" [with K-S. Chung], Review of Economic Studies 74 (2007): 447-476.
Ely's recent work on game theory has been on reputation, repeated games, and the foundations of game theory and mechanism design.
Joseph Ferrie
Professor of Economics
PhD, University of Chicago, 1992
Economic history
"The Path to Convergence: Intergenerational Occupational Mobility
in Britain and the U.S. in Three Eras" [with J. Long], Economic Journal 117 (March, 2007): C1-C11.
"Time on the Ladder: Career Mobility in American Agriculture, 1890-1937" [with L. Alston], Journal of Economic History 66 (2005): 1058-1081.
Ferrie studies the economic mobility of 19th century Americans. His research involves the construction of large, micro-level longitudinal data sets from historical sources (census manuscripts, passenger ship records, tax lists, city directories) and the analysis of the patterns of geographic, occupational, and financial mobility in these data. He is also working on the relationship between socioeconomic status and mortality in the U.S. since 1850.
Robert J. Gordon
Stanley G. Harris Professor in the Social Sciences
PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1967
Macroeconomics
"Exploding Productivity Growth Context, Causes, and Implications", Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 34 (2003): 207-98.
"Where Did the Productivity Growth Go? Inflation Dynamics and the Distribution of Income" [with I. Dew-Becker], Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 36 (2005): 67-150.
Gordon is a macroeconomist with a particular interest in unemployment, inflation, and both the long-run and cyclical aspects of productivity behavior. He has interpreted the post-1995 acceleration of U. S. productivity growth, the slowdown in European productivity growth, and the causes of divergent economic behavior between the U. S. and Europe. In particular, he has investigated how the post-1995 productivity growth acceleration was divided up among slower inflation, faster wage growth, higher profits, and a widening of inequality in the wage distribution.
Steffen Habermalz
Lecturer in Economics
PhD, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 2002
Labor economics - Applied microeconomics
"More Detail on the Pattern of Returns to Educational Signals", Southern Economic Journal 73 (2006).
Habermalz's research interests are broad and include job market signaling, employer learning, the structure of the beer industry, and other selected topics in labor economics, industrial organization, and health economics. Current research includes the investigation of the relationship between the existence of job market signaling and the speed of employer learning and a study concerning income inequality among truck drivers.
Igal Hendel
Professor of Economics
PhD, Harvard University, 1994
Industrial organization - Applied microeconomics
"The Role of Commitment in Dynamic Contracts Evidence from Life Insurance" [with A. Lizzeri], Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(2003): 299-327.
"Measuring the Implications of Sales and Consumer Inventory Behavior" [with A. Nevo], Econometrica
74 (2006): 1612-73.
Hendel's research interests are in the area of applied microeconomics and industrial organization. Recent work has focused on markets with asymmetric information and the estimation of dynamic consumer behavior.
Joel Horowitz
Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Market Economics
PhD, Cornell University, 1967
Econometrics
"Nonparametric Methods for Inference in the Presence of Instrumental Variables", Annals of Statistics 33 (2005): 2904-2929.
"Testing a Parametric Model against a Nonparametric Alternative with Identification through Instrumental Variables", Econometrica 74 (2006): 521-538.
Horowitz's research is concerned with estimation and inference under weak assumptions about the process that generates the data. It is also concerned with improving the accuracy of inference with samples of practical size. His recent empirical research includes economic studies of markets for illegal drugs and the effects of gun laws on crime.
Lillian Kamal
Lecturer in Economics
PhD, West Virginia University, 2006
Macroeconometrics - Development economics
Kamal's research interests lie in macroeconomics, in particular the forecasting of macroeconomic phenomena, development economics, and microfinance. Current research projects include outreach and sustainability of microfinance institutions, comparative studies on microfinance institutions (MFI) models, and the factors that affect intra-family lending environments.
L. Lynne Kiesling
Senior Lecturer in Economics
PhD, Northwestern University, 1993
Industrial organization - Public policy
"Analyzing the Blackout Report’s Recommendations: Alternatives For A Flexible, Dynamic Grid" [with M. Giberson], Electricity Journal 17 (2004): 51-59.
"The North American Blackout and Electricity Policy: Alternatives to Transmission Construction", Economic Affairs 24 (2004): 53-57.
Kiesling studies regulatory reform and restructuring, particularly of network industries. Her interests include electricity and natural gas industry restructuring, telecommunications regulation and restructuring, and the role of property rights, information, and transaction costs in shaping these changes.
Hilarie Lieb
College Advisor and Senior Lecturer in Economics
PhD, Northwestern University, 2001
Labor economics - Economics of gender
"The Changing Impact of Work, Marriage and Motherhood on Women's Poverty: 1960-2000" [with S. Thistle ], Journal of Women, Politics and Policy 27(3/4) (2005): 5-22.
"College Major Specialization and the Gender Division of Labor Between Market and Home Production, " Proceedings of the Social Science History Association, Chicago, 2001.
Lieb’s research integrates labor market theory with public policy to analyze outcomes that differ across race, gender and/or ethnicity. Her recent work includes analysis of the historical impact of national policy on gender segregation in college majors and a historical analysis of the changing role of marriage, work, and children on women’s poverty.
Charles Manski
Board of Trustees Professor of Economics
Department Chair
PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1973
Econometrics - Social policy
“Statistical Treatment Rules for Heterogeneous Populations,” Econometrica 72 (2004): 1221-1246.
Partial Identification of Probability Distributions, New York: Springer-Verlag (2003).
Manski is broadly concerned with problems of empirical inference faced by economic researchers and agents alike. Part of his ongoing work in econometric methods studies partial identification of probability distributions, with applications to the analysis of missing data and of treatment response. Another part studies identification of social interactions. His ongoing empirical work examines the expectations that individuals form for their futures and investigates the relationship between expectations and decision making.
Kiminori Matsuyama
Professor of Economics
PhD, Harvard University, 1987
International economics - Development economics
"Financial Market Globalization, Symmetry-Breaking, and Endogenous Inequality of Nations", Econometrica, 72 (2004): 853-884.
"The Rise of Mass Consumption Societies", Journal of Political Economy 110 (2002): 1035-1070.
Matsuyama's research focuses on understanding the processes that lead to instability and inequality in macroeconomic performance, and international growth and development. He has used his research to investigate business cycles, sustainable economic growth, uneven regional development, and income inequality between households.
Joel Mokyr
Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences
Professor of Economics and History
PhD, Yale University, 1974
Economic history
The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy, Princeton: Princeton University Press (2002).
"Long-term Economic Growth and the History of Technology", in P. Aghion and S. Durlauf (eds.), Handbook of Economic Growth, Amsterdam: North-Holland (2004).
Joel Mokyr works on the economic history of Europe, and specializes in the period 1750- 1914. His current research is concerned with the understanding of the economic and intellectual roots of technological progress and the growth of useful knowledge in European societies, as well as the impact that industrialization and economic progress have had on economic welfare. He is editor-in-chief of the Princeton University Press Economic History of the Western World, and the Oxford University Press Encyclopedia of Economic History and served as President of the Economic History Association. He is the winner (2006) of the biennial Heineken Award for History offered by the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences.
Alexander Monge-Naranjo
Assistant Professor of Economics
PhD, University of Chicago, 1999
Macroeconomics - International economics
"Human Capital Formation with Borrowing Constraints and Government Programs" [with L. Lochner], mimeo (2005).
"Foreign Organizations and Aggregate Productivity", mimeo (2005).
Monge's research focuses on areas of macroeconomics, particularly how alternative frictions determine the form of optimal contracts and affect the dynamics of aggregate economies.
Chiaki Moriguchi
Assistant Professor of Economics
PhD, Stanford University, 1998
Economic history - Economics of organization
"Implicit Contracts, the Great Depression, and Institutional Change: A Comparative Analysis of U.S. and Japanese Employment Relations, 1920-1940", Journal of Economic History 63 (2003): 1-41.
"Did American Welfare Capitalists Breach their Implicit Contracts? Preliminary Findings from Company-level Data,1920-1940", Industrial and Labor Relations Review 59 (2005): 51-81.
Moriguchi is interested in exploring the origins of economic institutions and the dynamics of institutional change in historical context. Her current research involves the comparative historical analysis of employment practices in the U.S. and Japan, 1900-2000, the evolution of income inequality in Japan, 1886-2005, and the economic analysis of child adoption in the U.S., 1950-2005.
Dale T. Mortensen
Ida C. Cook Professor of Economics
PhD, Carnegie-Mellon University, 1967
Labor economics
"Job Separations and the Distribution of Wages" [with B. Christiansen, R. Lentz, G. Neumann, and A. Werwatz], Journal of Labor Economics 23 (2005): 31-58.
"Productivity Growth and Worker Reallocation' [with R. Lentz], International Economic Review 46 (2005): 731-751.
Mortensen's research interests include the analysis of job search, unemployment insurance, worker quits and job separations, worker-job matching, and participation and unemployment dynamics. The development of equilibrium dynamic models designed to account for the time series behavior of aggregate job and worker flows is a principal topic of his current research. He is also estimating models of growth through creative destruction using Danish firm panel data.
Leon N. Moses
Professor Emeritus of Economics
PhD, Harvard University, 1957
Applied microeconomics - Transportation economics - Urban and regional economics
"Inventory Investment, Product Cycles, and the Imperfectly Competitive Firm" [with P. Jones and J. Zydiak], International Journal of Production Economics, 54 (1998): 267-76.
"A Cost-Benefit Analysis of United States Motor Carrier Safety Programs" [with I. Savage], Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, 31 (1997): 51-67.
Moses is currently working on a model of plant location that takes economies and diseconomies of scale into account in a fundamental way. The nature of the cost structure is not assumed. Rather, it is derived from an underlying production function and factor prices. The model allows pure scale effects on location to be determined along with the effects on factor usage, costs and profits. All of the effects of consumer taste changes and factor prices are taken into account in ways that are not possible in the traditional model.
Éva Nagypál
Assistant Professor of Economics
PhD, Stanford University, 2001
Macroeconomics - Labor economics
"Learning-by-Doing versus Learning About Match Quality: Can We Tell Them Apart?" Review of Economic Studies 74 (2007): 537-566.
"More on Unemployment and Vacancy Fluctuations" [with D. Mortensen], Review of Economic Dynamics 10 (2007): 327-347.
Nagypál is a macroeconomist with a particular interest in the functioning of labor markets. Her research focuses on studying the dynamics of labor markets in the presence of search frictions and on understanding the effects of incomplete information and learning on labor market outcomes. Her research includes both theoretical analysis and structural empirical study using micro-level data sources.
Aviv Nevo
Professor of Economics
PhD, Harvard University, 1997
Industrial organization - Econometrics
"Sales and Consumer Inventory" [with I. Hendel], RAND Journal of Economics 37 (2006): 543-561.
"Measuring the Implications of Sales and Consumer Inventory Behavior" [with I. Hendel], Econometrica 74 (2006): 1637-1673.
Nevo conducts empirical research in industrial organization. His focus is on industries with differentiated products. In these industries, he has studied collusive behavior, the effects of mergers, the gains from new products and price discrimination. In recent work he studies dynamic consumer behavior and its implications.
Wojciech Olszewski
Associate Professor of Economics
PhD Mathematics, University of Warsaw 1993; PhD Economics, Princeton University, 2001
Microeconomic theory
"Informal Communication", Journal of Economic Theory 172 (2004): 180-200.
"The folk theorem for games with private almost-perfect monitoring" [with J. Hörner], mimeo (2005).
Olszewski's work includes communication, repeated games, decision theory mechanism design, and political economy. He currently works on empirical testing of probabilistic theories, and repeated games with imperfect private monitoring.
John Panzar
Louis W. Menk Professor of Economics
PhD, Stanford University, 1975
Industrial organization
"On Setting Prices and Testing Cross-Subsidy with Accounting Data" [with M. Bradley and J. Colvin], Journal of Regulatory Economics 16 (1999): 83-100.
"A Methodology for Measuring the Costs of Universal Service", Information Economics and Policy 12 (2000): 211-220.
Panzar's research has focused on the theoretical and policy problems posed by multiproduct natural monopolies, with particular reference to network industries such as telecommunications, electric power, air transport, and postal services. The primary policy issue in such industries is the trade-off between economies of scale and scope and the efficiencies promised by increased competition.
Alessandro Pavan
Assistant Professor of Economics
PhD, University of Toulouse, 2001
Microeconomic theory - Information economics
"Efficient Use of Information and Social Value of Information" [with G-M. Angeletos], Econometrica 75 (2007): 1103-1142.
"Dynamic Global Games of Regime Change: Learning, Multiplicity, and Timing of Attacks" [with G-M. Angeletos and C. Hellwig], Econometrica 75 (2007): 711-756.
Pavan's research focuses on economic theory and on information economics. His research interests include static and dynamic (global) coordination games with endogenous information structures, mechanism design in common agency environments, optimal privacy in sequential contracting, monopoly with resale, and auctions with endogenous supply schedules.
Robert Porter
William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Economics
PhD, Princeton University, 1981
Industrial organization
"Empirical Implications of Equilibrium Bidding in First-Price, Symmetric, Common Value Auctions" [with K. Hendricks and J. Pinkse], Review of Economic Studies, 70 (2003): 115-45.
"An Empirical Perspective on Auctions" [with Ken Hendricks], in M. Armstrong and R. Porter (eds.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, Amsterdam: Elsevier (2007).
Porter's research is concerned with the role of information in strategic settings. He has investigated auction market data, from the U.S. federal sales of offshore oil and gas leases, and from state highway construction and school milk auctions. The former research project examines how imperfect and asymmetric information affects strategic behavior, and the ability to coordinate actions. In the latter two cases, methods were proposed for detecting the presence of a bid-rigging scheme.
Giorgio Primiceri
Assistant Professor of Economics
PhD, Princeton University, 2004
Macroeconomics - Applied time-series econometrics
"Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy", Review of Economic Studies 72 (2005): 821-852.
"Why Inflation Rose and Fell Policymakers' Beliefs and US Postwar Stabilization Policy", Quarterly Journal of Economics 121 (2006): 867-901.
Primiceri's research focuses on understanding the determinants of business cycle fluctuations. In particular, he studies the effect of stabilization policy on the behavior of inflation and real activity in the United States.
Stanley Reiter
Professor Emeritus of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences
PhD, University of Chicago, 1955
Microeconomic theory
Designing Economic Mechanisms [with L. Hurwicz], New York: Cambridge University Press (2006).
"Interdependent Preferences and Groups of Agents", Journal of Public Economic Theory 3 (2001): 27-67.
Reiter’s main research is on the design of efficient decentralized
mechanisms whose outcomes are those specified by a given goal function. Algorithms for designing such mechanisms are presented in his recent book co-authored with L. Hurwicz.
William Rogerson
Professor of Economics
PhD, California Institute of Technology, 1980
Industrial organization
"Simple Menus of Contracts in Cost-Based Procurement and Regulation", American Economic Review 93 (2003): 919-926.
"Inter-Temporal Cost Allocation and Managerial Investment Incentives", Journal of Political Economy 105 (1997): 770-95.
Rogerson's areas of research are industrial organization, regulation, telecommunications, contract theory, incentives, and cost accounting.
Todd Sarver
Assistant Professor of Economics
PhD, Boston University, 2006
Microeconomic theory
"Anticipating Regret: Why Fewer Options May Be Better", mimeo (2005).
"Correlated Equilibrium in Evolutionary Models with Subpopulations" [with J. Lenzo], Games and Economic Behavior, 56 (2006): 271-284.
Sarver's research areas include decision theory and game theory. His current research is focused on axiomatic models of decision making and evolutionary foundations for game theory.
Ian Savage
Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Economics
Associate Department Chair
PhD, University of Leeds, 1984
Transportation economics - Economics of safety
"Economic Regulation of Transport: Principles and Experience" in M. Crew and D. Parker (eds.), International Handbook on Economic Regulation, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar (2006).
"Management Objectives and the Causes of Mass Transit Deficits", Transportation Research A 38 (2004): 181-199.
Savage specializes in urban transportation, and the analysis of safety regulation and safety performance. He has researched the regulation of urban transit and evaluated the use of subsidies. His safety research has dealt with the valuing of human life, and with understanding the economic rationale for safety regulations. His work has spanned most transportation modes: aviation, trucking, maritime, and most recently the railroad industry.
Eric Schulz
Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Economics
PhD, Northwestern University, 1994
Monetary economics - Applied microeconomics
Schulz is interested in micro-based models of money and credit. He has also worked on issues in political economy and in the determination of the rate of time preference.
Ron Siegel
Assistant Professor of Economics
PhD, Stanford University, 2007
Microeconomic theory – Industrial organization
"All-Pay Contests", mimeo (2007).
Siegel is interested in microeconomic theory and industrial organization. His current research focuses on the effects of asymmetries among contestants on the outcome of competitions with irreversible investments. He also investigates the incentive and social-welfare effects of licensing procedures.
Marciano Siniscalchi
Associate Professor of Economics
PhD, Stanford University, 1998
Microeconomic theory - Information economics
"A Behavioral Characterization of Plausible Priors", Journal of Economic Theory 128 (2006): 91-135.
"Efficient Sorting in a Dynamic Adverse-Selection Model" [with I. Hendel and A. Lizzeri], Review of Economic Studies 72 (2005): 467-498.
Siniscalchi's research lies in the areas of game theory, decision theory and information economics, with special emphasis on dynamic models. His work in game theory focuses on the foundations of solution concepts for dynamic games, and on the robust analysis of games with incomplete information, such as auctions. In the area of decision theory, his recent work focuses on static and dynamic models of choice under ambiguity. Siniscalchi is also working on economic models of parenting and supervised learning, as well as their implications for key issues such as the nature-nurture debate.
Elie Tamer
HSBC Research Professor in Economics
PhD, Northwestern University, 1999
Econometrics
"Bounds on Parameters in Panel Dynamic Discrete Choice Models" [with B. Honoré], Econometrica 74 (2006): 611- 630.
“Inference with an Incomplete Model of English Auctions” [with P. Haile], Journal of Political Economy 111 (2003): 1-51.
Tamer's research studies econometric theory as it relates to economic problems. Part of his research studies inference in classes of models typically used in empirical industrial organization, where strategic interactions and multiple equilibria play a key role. Another strand of Tamer's research deals with inference in partially identified models and models with censored data.
Sergio Urzúa
Assistant Professor of Economics
PhD, University of Chicago, 2007
Labor economics - Microeconometrics
"Understanding Instrumental Variables in Models with Essential Heterogeneity" [with J. Heckman and E. Vytlacil], Review of Economics and Statistics 88 (2006): 389-432.
"The Effects of Cognitive and Noncognitive Abilities on Labor Market Outcomes and Social Behavior" [with J. Heckman and J. Stixrud], Journal of Labor Economics 24 (2006): 385-410.
Urzúa's research has focused on the role of cognitive and noncognitive abilities, and uncertainty as determinants of schooling decisions, labor market outcomes and social behavior. His research in econometrics is mainly concerned with the estimation of selection models with unobserved heterogeneity.
Richard Walker
Lecturer in Economics
PhD, London School of Economics, 2002
Macroeconomics - Political economy
"Individual Specialization and Aggregate Demand", mimeo (2006).
"Interaction and Malefaction" [with D. Rubenson], mimeo (2006).
Walker's research deals with individual labor market specialization and aggregate demand in a general equilibrium model. He is also interested in political economy, especially in regard to negative externalities.
Burton A. Weisbrod
John Evans Professor of Economics
PhD, Northwestern University, 1958
Economics of nonprofit organizations - Economics of health
"Nonprofits with Distributional Objectives: Price Discrimination and Corner Solutions" [with R. Steinberg], Journal of Public Economics 89 (2005): 2205-2230.
"Do Religious Nonprofit and For-Profit Organizations Respond Differently to Financial Incentives: the Hospice Industry" [with R. Lindrooth], Journal of Health Economics 26 (2007): 342-357.
Weisbrod's research focuses on managerial incentive structures by governmental, private nonprofit (religious and other), and for-profit organizations, in mixed industries such as health care (hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices), higher education, and the arts. He is particularly interested in problems of performance measurement and in the interdependencies of revenues from user fees, donations, and ancillary commercial activities. Within the health care sector Weisbrod's work also encompasses the causes and consequences of technological change and its interrelationships with health care insurance and expenditures.
Michael Whinston
Robert E. and Emily H. King Professor of Economics
PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1984
Industrial organization - Microeconomic theory
Lectures on Antitrust Economics, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press (2006).
"Robust Predictions for Bilateral Contracting with Externalities" [with I. Segal], Econometrica 71 (2003): 757-91.
Whinston's research lies in the areas of industrial organization and microeconomic theory. His recent work includes analyses of the competitive effects of exclusive dealing contracts, the motivations for the use of incomplete contracts, and the theory of mechanism design. He is also co-author of the graduate microeconomic textbook Microeconomic Theory.
Mirko Wiederholt
Assistant Professor of Economics
PhD, European University Institute, 2003
Macroeconomics - Information economics
"Optimal Sticky Prices under Rational Inattention" [with B. Mackowiak], mimeo (2005).
"Markets for Information and the Allocation of Capital across counties", mimeo (2003).
Wiederholt is interested in macroeconomics and information economics. His recent research focuses on understanding business cycles. He has studied how limits to information processing affect price setting decisions and aggregate fluctuations.
Mark Witte
Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Economics
PhD, Northwestern University, 1997
Macroeconomics - Public finance
"Keynes, Ramsey, and the Birth of Macroeconomics" [with P. Mannone], mimeo (2003).
"The Deadweight Loss of the CAFE standard", mimeo (2004).
Witte works on applied questions in macroeconomics and public finance. His main interests are in consumption theory and topics in taxation.
Asher Wolinsky
Gordon Fulcher Professor of Economics
PhD, Stanford University, 1980
Microeconomic theory - Industrial organization
"Second Opinions and Price Competition Inefficiency in the Market for
Expert Advice" [with W. Pesendorfer], Review of Economic Studies 70 (2003): 417-437.
"A Theory of the Firm with Non-Binding Employment Contracts", Econometrica 68 (2000): 875-910.
Wolinsky's research deals mainly with the theory of markets which operate under conditions of imperfect competition and imperfect information.
Martin Zelder
Senior Lecturer in Economics
PhD, University of Chicago, 1989
Law and economics – Economics of the family – Health economics
"Public and Private Pharmaceutical Spending as Determinants of Health Outcomes in Canada" [with P. Cremieux, M. Meilleur, P. Ouellette, P. Petit, and K. Potvin], Health Economics 14 (2005): 107-116.
"Inefficient Dissolutions as a Consequence of Public Goods: The Case of No-Fault Divorce", Journal of Legal Studies 22 (1993): 503-520.
Zelder's research focuses on the impact of legal institutions on microeconomic outcomes. He has assessed the impact of no-fault divorce statutes on marital stability given intrinsic limitations on spousal bargaining, and has also analyzed the implications of statutory constraints on adoption, sexual behavior, and suicide. Some of his recent work in health economics concerns the productivity of public-sector health spending.
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