In The News
Arnold Zellner, a leading economist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business who pioneered the field of Bayesian econometrics, died August 11 at his home in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. He was 83 and suffered a stroke while battling cancer. [full story]
John List was awarded the Kenneth Galbraith prize by the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA). The award was given for recognition of List's "breakthrough discoveries in economics and outstanding contributions to humanity through leadership, research, and service." In presenting the award the committee cited List's pathbreaking work using field experiments in economics.
James Heckman was elected into the Academia Sinica on July 8, 2010. Academia Sinica is an international research institution aimed at improving academic research conditions and standards through placing great emphasis on opening up new areas of intellectual endeavor .... For more details, please access http://www.sinica.edu.tw/manage/gatenews/showsingle.php
In the picture from left to right: Hector PEREZ SAIZ, Ph.D.; Professor Hugo Sonnenschein, Director of Graduate Studies; Nicholas TRACHTER, Ph.D. (kneeling); Matias TAPIA GONZALEZ, Ph.D.; Jorge MORENO TREVINO, Ph.D.; Tien Yuek (Priscilla) MAN, Ph.D.; Benjamin MOLL, Ph.D.; Tarun GUPTA, Ph.D.; Lorenzo CALIENDO, Ph.D.; Lee LOCKWOOD, Ph.D.; Professor Harald Uhlig, Chairman, Department of Economics. Not included in the picture: Rahul BHARGAVA, Ph.D.; Adam Michael CLEMENS, Ph.D.; Tiago DA SILVA PINHEIRO, Ph.D.; Maris GOLDMANIS, Ph.D.; Asier MARISCAL ARLABAN, Ph.D.; Marc TEIGNIER BAQUE, Ph.D.
Gary Becker receives the 2010 Alumni Medal
Professor Gary Becker, AM'53, PhD'55, will receive the 2010 Alumni Medal at the Alumni Convocation at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 5 at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel for his work as a Nobel Prize-winning economist. (full story)
James Heckman has been elected into the National Academy of Education (NAEd). The National Academy of Education is dedicated to the advancement of the highest quality education research and its use in policy formation and practice.
James Heckmanhas been ranked fifth by the Times Higher Educationissue among authors in economics and business, ranked by number of papers cited 50 or more times from 1970-2009. For more details, please access http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyccode=411310.
Robert Shimerhas been awarded the Sherwin Rosen Prize for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Labor Economics. The presentation will be made at the SOLE meeting in London in June.
On June 4, 2010, the MFI will co-sponsor a conference on "Economic Analysis and Education Policy" with the Searle Freedom Trust and the University of Chicago's Committee on Education. In recent years, the main contribution of economists to the inter-disciplinary field of education research has been to refine statistical methods used to evaluate existing policies and programs. However, economists have done less work on the optimal design of education policies given specified societal objectives. Organized by Derek Neal, University of Chicago, this conference will highlight the contributions that economist can make to the study of education by applying the analytical tools that economists so often employ in other areas. Please visit http://mfi.uchicago.edu/programs/fy10_events/conf_June4.shtml for details and papers. RSVPs are requested at mfi@uchicago.edu.
Robert Shimerhas been elected as a fellow to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A complete list of the 2010 class of new members is located at: http://www.amacad.org/news/a2z10.pdf.
On March 27, 2010, Nobel Laureate, Gary Becker, was featured in The Wall Street JournalOpinion section entitled, "Basically an Optimist" - Still. The interview by Peter Robinson is available at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704094104575144011906222520.html.
Hugo Sonnenschein awarded BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award In Economics
Hugo Sonnenschein (New York, 1940) and Andreu Mas-Colell (Barcelona, 1944) share the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics, Finance and Managemnt for extending the reach and applicability of general equilibrium analysis and for establishing the modern theory of aggregate demand. According to the jury's citation, their work has helped achieve better models for the overall behavior of the economy, and particularly to interpret and empirically measure consumer behavior. [full story]
US News and World Report Ranking
The University of Chicago is ranked as the top graduate school for Economics in the nation by US News and World Report. We are proud to share this ranking with MIT, Harvard and Princeton. Here are the 2009 rankings: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-economics-schools/rankings.
We are pleased to announce that Brent Hickman (Economics, University of Iowa) will be joining us at the rank of Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics and in the College on July 1, 2010. Brent's research focuses on microeconomic theory, applied game theory, industrial organization, and structural econometrics. In addition, Richard Van Weelden (Economics, Yale University) will be joining us on July 1, 2011, at the rank of Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics and in the College, after a one-year postdoc at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. His research focuses on applied game theory and political economy.
Paul Samuelson died on Sunday, December 13th in Belmont, Massachusetts. Paul Samuelson graduate from the University of Chicago in 1935, received his PhD from Harvard, and joined the MIT faculty in 1940. His Foundations has been a key graduate textbook, almost single-handedly raising the analytical standards in the profession. In 1970, he became the second person to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, which was created in 1968. The Department wishes to express its deepest condolences to the family.
Lars Peter Hansen has been named the founding director of the University of Chicago's Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics. Hansen, the Homer J. Livingston Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College at the University, has been one of the forces behind the development of the Institute. He served as chairman of the faculty steering committee that recommended MFI's creation and gave it scholarly direction, and he has helped build a robust program for the Institute following its launch in July 2008. [full story].
SuperFreakonomics release
Steven Levitt's new book, SuperFreakonomics, was released on October 20, 2009. Steve is the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College. In 2004, he was the recipient of the highly esteemed John Bates Clark Medal. For more details, please access [full story].
Experts on the Olympics at the University of Chicago
Allen Sanderson is an economist who has studied Olympic financing and analyzed the costs of holding an Olympics in Chicago...[full story]
In Defence of the Dismal Science (The Economist)
In a guest article, Robert Lucas, the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, rebuts criticisms that the financial crisis represents a failure of economics. [full story]
Chicago Schooled (The University of Chicago Magazine)
The visible hand of the recession has revitalized critics of the Chicago School of Economics. [full story]
Rose Friedman died on August 18, 2009 at 98 at her home in Davis, California. Rose was the wife of Milton Friedman(1912-2006), 1976 Nobel Prize recipient in Economics. She received a Bachelor of Philosophy degree from University of Chicago and completed all work required for a PhD in Economics except for writing a dissertation. She co-wrote two books on economics and public policy, Free to Choose and Tyranny of the Status Quo, and Milton and Rose D. Friedman, Two Lucky People, a memoir appearing in 1998. She also helped produce the PBS television series, Free to Choose and The Tyranny of the Status Quo. Rose is survived by two children, Janet and David, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. The Department wishes to express its deepest condolences to the family. Further information may be found on the Milton Friedman Institute website.
Roger Myerson, the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the academy announced Tuesday, April 28, 2009.
Myerson was awarded the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was recognized for his contributions to mechanism design theory, initiated by co-author Leonid Hurwicz of the University of Minnesota, and which Myerson further developed with others, including co-winner Eric Maskin of the Institute for Advanced Study.
For more information, please see the following site:
http://news.uchicago.edu/news.php?asset_id=1602
New Department Chair
Professor Harald Uhlig has been named the next chair of the Department of Economics. Professor Uhlig succeeds Professor Philip Reny, the William C. Norby Professor in Economics and the College, whose three-year term ended June 30, 2009.
Professor Uhlig received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1990. He was Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Princeton University 1990-1994; Research Professor for Macroeconomics, CentER for Economics Research, Tilburg University (the Netherlands) 1994-2000 and Professor of Economics at Humboldt University in Berlin from 2000-2007. Professor Uhlig joined the Department of Economics in July 2007.
Professor Uhlig's research interests are in applied quantitative theory and applied dynamics; stochastic general equilibrium theory; the intersection of microeconomics and financial economics; Bayesian time series economics and empirical macroeconomics.
New Faculty
We are pleased to announce that Rafael Lopes de Melo (Economics, Yale University) will be joining us at the rank of Assistant Professor in the Department if Economics and in the College on July 1, 2009. Rafael's research focuses on macroeconomics and labor economics.
In November,Professor Heckman, was elected as a fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science Council. He was recognized for his distinguished accomplishments at the Fellows Forum which was held on February 14, 2009 during the AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago.
James J. Heckman, The Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College, was awarded the Gold Medal of the President of the Italian Republic by the Scientific Committee of the Pio Manzu Centre. In their citation, the committee states that Jim is "Famous above all for introducing the concept of 'selection bias' in modern econometrics, he has subjected the theories of economic and social change to profound critical reappraisal." And that, "His is the merit of understanding, before others, the importance of diversity, flexibility and heterogeneity and the value of local skills..."[citation]
On September 30, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) announced that Professor Lars Peter Hansen, The Homer J. Livingston Distinguished Service Professor in the Departments of Economics and Statistics at the University of Chicago, is the 2008 recipient of the CME Group-MSRI Prize in Innovative Quantitative Applications.
In their award citation, the award committee identifies Lars as "...the leading contributor to the development and application of rigorous estimation and testing methods for financial data. His 1982 paper on Generalized Methods of Moments fundamentally altered the way that empirical research is done in finance and macroeconomics."
Previous recipients of this distinguished prize include David M. Kreps, Theodore J. Kreps Professor of Economics, Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stephen A. Ross, Franco Modigliani Professor of Financial Economics, MIT Sloan School of Management. The full press release can be found at: [details]
Roger B. Myerson, the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College, was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economic Science "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory." Myerson earned one-third of the prize along with colleagues Leonid Hurwicz of the University of Minnesota and Eric S. Maskin of the Institute for Advanced Study
Myerson is the author of Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict (1991) and Probability Models for Economic Decision (2005). Myerson has published computer software programs related to his work and more than 70 papers on game theory and other topics concerning his research. He has been both a Guggenheim fellow and a Sloan Foundation research fellow.
May 13, 2008: Derek Neal was elected President of the Midwest Economics Association, and a Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists.
April 24, 2008: Gary S. Becker received 2008 Bradley Prize for Outstanding Achievement. The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation's selection committee chose Professor Becker for his "pioneering work in the fields of economics and human behavior [that] has revolutionized those fields of study and inspired a generation of economists." Professor Becker was honored June 4th at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. [Bradley Foundation's press release at the University's News Office]
April 3, 2008: David Galenson (right) receives 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship: "Why is 20th century art so distinctively different from the art of its predecessors?" Professor Galenson will use his fellowship to explore this question as part of an upcoming book that will offer a "unified explanation of how and why artists created this work and behaved in these novel ways." [Guggenheim Foundation's Press Release; Article from the University of Chicago Chronicle; David Galenson's Experts Page from the University of Chicago's News Office]
Gary S. Becker (left) awarded the 2007 Presidential Medal of Freedom. Professor Becker received the nation's highest civilian honor November 5th at the White House for his lifetime of work analyzing the "interaction between economics and topics such as education, demography, and family organization" helping to "improve the standard of living for people around the world" [White House Announcement].
This is the latest honor for Professor Becker, recipient of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences and the National Medal of Science in 2000.
He currently holds appointments and teaches in the departments of Economics, Sociology, and the Graduate School of Business.[Additional information on his life and work]
