James Joseph Heckman (born April 19, 1944) is an American economist and Nobel laureate who serves as the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago, where he is also a professor at the college, a professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, Director of the Center for the Economics of Human Development (CEHD), and co-director of Human Capital and Economic Opportunity (HCEO) Global Working Group. He is also a professor of law at the Law School, a senior research fellow at the American Bar Foundation, and a research associate at the NBER. He received the John Bates Clark Medal in 1983, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2000, which he shared with Daniel McFadden. He is known principally for his pioneering work in econometrics and microeconomics. Heckman is noted for his contributions to selection bias and self-selection in quantitative analysis in the social sciences, especially the Heckman correction, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Economics. He is also well known for his empirical research in labor economics and his scholarship on the efficacy of early childhood education programs. As of June 2024, according to RePEc, he is the third-most influential economist in the world.
Early years Heckman was born to John Jacob Heckman and Bernice Irene Medley in Chicago, Illinois. He received his B.A. in mathematics from Colorado College in 1965 and his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University in 1971 after completing a doctoral dissertation titled "Three essays on the supply of labor and the demand for goods" under the supervision of Stanley W. Black.
Career He served as an assistant professor at Columbia University before he moved to the University of Chicago, in 1973. He has been a dissertation advisor for over 70 students, including Carolyn Heinrich, George Borjas, Stephen Cameron, Mark Rosenzweig, and Russ Roberts. In addition to serving as the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor and director of the Economics Research Center in the department of economics, Heckman is also a professor of law at the Law School and a professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, where he is director of both the Center for Social Program Evaluation and Center for the Study of Childhood Development. He also serves as a member of the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics's Research Council. Heckman has held many appointments at other institutions and notably served as the Distinguished Chair of Microeconometrics at University College London (2004–2008), a professor of Science and Society at University College Dublin (2005–2014), and as the Alfred Cowles Distinguished Visiting Professor at Yale University (2008–2011). His current appointments include Presidential Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Southern California's Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics (2015–) and International Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (2014–).
Center for the Economics of Human Development Founded in 2014 and directed by Heckman, the Center for the Economics of Human Development (CEHD), at the University of Chicago, umbrellas his multiple research areas and initiatives that encompass rigorous empirical research to determine effective human capital policies and program design. CEHD initiatives include the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group, the Pritzker Consortium on Early Childhood Development, the Heckman Equation, the Research Network on the Determinants of Life Course Capabilities and Outcomes, and the Asian Family in Transition Initiative.
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