The Becker-Friedman Institute for Research in Economics

James Heckman

Institute Research Council
Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in Economics

Heckman, a co-recipient of the 2000 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, is a prominent scholar of the impact of social programs and the methodologies used to measure their effects. His research has given policymakers important new insights into such areas as education, job-training programs, minimum-wage legislation, anti-discrimination law and civil rights.

He is the author of Longitudinal Analysis of Labor Market Data, Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean, Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies? and numerous articles on labor, education and civil-rights policies. His recent research focuses on human development and lifecycle skill formation, with a special emphasis on the economics of early childhood. He is also working on the impact of regulation and deregulation in Latin American labor markets.

He received the John Bates Clark Award of the American Economic Association in 1983.

Activities

Events

• New Economics of the Family (Organizer)
• New Directions in the Economic Analysis of Education (Lecturer)
• Creating Capabilities: Sources and Consequences for Law and Social Policy (Organizer)
• Bridging the Gap Between Economic Theory and Econometric Practice: A Conference Honoring James J. Heckman (Presenter)
  Honoring Gary Becker (Presenter)
• Matching and Price Theory (Organizer)
  Chicago-Renmin Symposium on Family and Labor Economics (Organizer)
  

Papers Presented

• Education and Health
• Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation
• The Evolution of Inequality, Heterogeneity and Uncertainty in Labor Earnings in the U.S. Economy

Slideshows

• New Directions in the Economic Analysis of Education