James J. Heckman

University of Chicago
Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Economics, University of Chicago; Professor of Science and Society, Geary Institute and University College Dublin; Senior Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation

James J. Heckman is the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he has served since 1973. In 2000, he won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Heckman directs the Economics Research Center and the Center for Social Program Evaluation at the Harris School for Public Policy. In addition, he is the Professor of Science and Society in University College Dublin and a Senior Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation.
His work has been devoted to the development of a scientific basis for economic policy evaluation. He has developed a body of new econometric tools that address these issues. Heckman is actively researching the economics of human development and building theoretical and empirical models of human capacity formation. This work emphasizes the role of the family in producing capacities and the effects of capacities on education, wages, health, crime, and other dimensions of lifetime achievement. He is currently conducting new social experiments on early childhood interventions and reanalyzing old experiments.
Heckman has published 279 articles and nine books. Heckman has received numerous awards for his work, including the John Bates Clark Medal in 1983, the Jacob Mincer Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2005, and the Ulysses Medal from the University College Dublin in 2006. He is also member of many academic and professional societies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the International Statistical Institute, the American Statistical Association, the Society of Labor Economics, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Academy of Education. In addition, he has been the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and professorships.

Working Group

Early Childhood Interventions (ECI)
Family Inequality (FI)
Health Inequality (HI)
Identity and Personality (IP)
Inequality: Measurement, Interpretation, and Policy (MIP)
Markets (M)

Additional Information

Email: jjh@uchicago.edu
Homepage: http://jenni.uchicago.edu/