The Economics Community

Stanford's dedication to excellence in all fields of economics is reflected in the strength and depth of its faculty. Relative to other major economics departments, our faculty represents a wide spectrum of ideological viewpoints and conducts research on an extremely broad range of topics. The breadth of the Department is indicated by this list of faculty members who pursue research in the following fields:

• Microeconomic Theory & Mathematical Economics: Kenneth Arrow, Liran Einav, Peter Hammond, Mordecai Kurz, Jonathan Levin, Paul Milgrom, Ilya Segal.

• Macroeconomics: Michael Boskin, Robert Hall, John Taylor, Michele Tertilt, Mark Wright.

• Econometrics: Takeshi Amemiya, Peter Hansen, Thomas MaCurdy, Aprajit Mahajan, Frank Wolak.

• Comparative Institutional Analysis: Avner Greif, Paul Milgrom.

• Economic History: Ran Abramitzky, Paul David, Avner Greif, Gavin Wright.

• Industrial Organization: Susan Athey, Timothy Bresnahan, Liran Einav, Jonathan Levin, Paul Milgrom, Roger Noll, Ilya Segal, Frank Wolak.

• International Economics: Orazio Attanasio, Ronald McKinnon, Mark Wright.

• Labor Economics: Nick Bloom, Thomas MaCurdy, John Pencavel, Luigi Pistaferri.

• Public Finance: Douglas Bernheim, Michael Boskin, Lawrence Goulder, Antonio Rangel, John Shoven.

• Environmental Economics: Lawrence Goulder.

This list includes 14 faculty members listed in Who's Who in Economics, 12 Fellows of the Econometric Society, 12 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, six members of the National Academy of Sciences, three Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association, and one Nobel Laureate, Kenneth Arrow.

Many other prominent economists are associated with other Stanford departments, graduate programs, or research institutions. Some of these are formally affiliated with the Department of Economics.

Stanford's Graduate School of Business is considered by many to be the finest in the country. Of particular interest to our graduate students are its strengths in economic theory and finance. Finance professors Myron Scholes and William Sharpe are Nobel Laureates. Business School professors with courtesy appointments in the Economics Department include David Baron, David Kreps, John Roberts, Robert Wilson, and Mark Wolfson.

The Hoover Institution, a well-known research organization, is located only steps from the Economics Department. Hoover maintains an outstanding group of permanent and visiting economists, including Nobel Laureates Gary Becker and Milton Friedman. Sherwin Rosen, a major labor economist, and Barry Weingast, a leading political economist, are Senior Fellows at Hoover, and have courtesy appointments in the Economics Department.

Other well known economists have appointments in various departments of the university. Mitchell Polinsky, a specialist in the field of Law and Economics in the Law School, medical economist Alan Garber, Health Research & Policy professor Laurence Baker, and Japanese specialist Ken-Ichi Imai at the Institute for International Studies also have courtesy appointments in the Department of Economics.

Our Department also maintains informal links with economists working in the Departments of Engineering and Economic Systems, Education, and Political Science. In addition, research institutes such as the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics (SITE), and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) bring a constant stream of prominent visiting economists from throughout the world.

Due to this wealth of resources, it is not unusual to find two or three seminars of interest taking place on any given day, and organizations such as the Hoover Institution, SIEPR, SITE, and NBER run frequent and well-attended conferences. During the Summer Session, Stanford becomes a major center for economic theorists from throughout the world who come to attend the SITE summer workshop. The economics community also provides students with numerous opportunities for research assistantships and sources of support for dissertation research.