Joshua Angrist

EXCLUSIVE

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist
Co-Founder and Director, MIT's Blueprint Labs
Co-Author of 'Mostly Harmless Economics' and 'Mastering 'Metrics'
Co-Founder, Avela Ed Tech

Nobel Prize-winning economist and author Joshua Angrist is a pioneer in the use of econometric ideas and tools to answer some of today’s most pressing policy questions. Angrist received the Nobel Prize for his innovative work using natural experiments to answer questions of profound importance. Does it matter whether you go to a highly selective high school or college? Where are the best schools? What are the long-run consequences of military service for those who serve? What are the economic implications of having, or growing up in, a larger family? Why are the sort of statistics we hear so often in the media likely to be misleading? How can you – as the consumer of such information – break through the fog? The tools of econometric data science, wielded with skill and judgment, dispel the hype and offer new insights.

Angrist is also Co-Founder of Avela, an education technology startup that matches students to opportunities, prioritizing equity, accountability, and quality to ensure fair decisions and empower families.

Angrist has co-authored two of the leading texts in applied econometrics and data science, Mostly Harmless Economics: An Empiricist’s Companion and Mastering ‘Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect. Not only scientifically rigorous, with innovative content, his books are by far the funniest econometrics texts you’re ever likely to see. Angrist is the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT, co-founder and director of MIT’s Blueprint Labs, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has served on many editorial boards and as a co-editor of the Journal of Labor Economics.

Videos: Watch Joshua Angrist Speak >>

Keynote clip - The Maimonides Study | 'Inspired by Israel' event - MIT/Israeli Consulate [4:12] - Get Sharable Link

Keynote clip - The Maimonides Study | 'Inspired by Israel' event - MIT/Israeli Consulate [4:12]

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PreRec Virt. Keynote - Empirical Strategies in Economics: Illuminating the Path from Cause to Effect | The Nobel Prize [39:54]

Hybrid Keynote - Computers in the Classroom: Causal Effects | American Economic Assoc. [12:41]

Promo - Josh Angrist: Isn't Econometrics Boring?! | Marginal Revolution U. [1:36]

Virt. Live Press Conference - Remarks and Q&A on being awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics | MIT [45:42]

Hybrid Keynote - Machine Labour, the 2nd Alan Krueger Lecture | Festival Economia [54:27]

Promo - Josh Angrist: What's the Difference Between Econometrics and Data Science? | Marginal Revolution U. [2:00]

Promo - Josh Angrist: Are Machine Learning and Big Data Changing Econometrics? | Marginal Revolution U. [1:51]

Virt. Live Seminar - Credible School Value Added with Undersubscribed Lotteries | Harvard Grad. School of Education [1:11:32]

Books by Joshua Angrist

Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion

Mastering 'Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect

Press & Media

Mastering Econometrics with Joshua Angrist [video] - MRU

A real-world revolution in economics [podcast] - The Economist

Nobel-winning ‘natural experiments’ approach made economics more robust - Nature.com

Experiments in Economics - Princeton Alumni Weekly

Biography

Joshua Angrist is the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT, a co-founder and director of MIT's Blueprint Labs, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. A dual U.S. and Israeli citizen, Angrist taught at Harvard and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before coming to MIT in 1996. Angrist received his B.A. from Oberlin College in 1982 and completed his Ph.D. in Economics at Princeton in 1989.

Angrist has developed innovative ways to harness the power of natural experiments to answer important economic questions, transforming empirical research. These new econometric tools help social scientists and policy-makers discover the causal effects of choices and policy changes. Angrist’s research is not only methodological. In dozens of studies, he explores the economics of education and school reform; the impact of social programs on the labor market; the labor market effects of immigration, regulation, and institutions.

Angrist received the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 2021 (with Co-Laureates Guido Imbens and David Card). He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society, and has served on many editorial boards and as a co-editor of the Journal of Labor Economics. Angrist received an honorary doctorate from the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) in 2007.

An accomplished author, Angrist co-authored Mostly Harmless Economics: An Empiricist's Companion and Mastering 'Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect with Steve Pischke. These are among the most widely used econometrics texts and are certainly the funniest. Through this work and their ongoing scholarship, Angrist and Pischke hope to bring undergraduate econometrics instruction out of the Stones Age.

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