Institute Research Council
William H. Abbott Professor of International Business and Economics, Chicago Booth School of Business
Steven J. Davis is an applied economist with research publications on employment and wage behavior, worker mobility, job loss, the effects of labor market institutions, business dynamics, industrial organization, economic fluctuations, national economic performance, public policy and other topics. In addition to a basic understanding of the big macroeconomic issues, Davis hopes his students learn "an informed skepticism about data and economic argumentation and an analytical approach that they can apply to business and economic problems in their careers."
Davis is former Editor of the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. He is also a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, an economic adviser to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and a non-resident visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Previously, he held positions at the National University of Singapore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Milken Institute for Job and Capital Formation, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. During a leave of absence, he was vice president in the Competition Practice at CRA International, an economics consulting firm. "This practical experience taught me that there is a market for analytical thinking skills, the hallmark of a Chicago Booth education," he said.
His research has been supported by grants from the Kauffman Foundation, the World Economic Forum, the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Labor, and several other organizations.
In addition to publication in numerous academic journals, Davis has published in the Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and other popular media. He has made television appearances on CNBC, Fox News Channel, NBC News, and PBS, among others. He has also appeared on various radio shows.
As a young man interested in economic, political, and social issues, Davis concluded that economics offered a powerful set of tools for understanding economic and social behavior. He pursued graduate studies in economics with the intention of "learning how to think." Davis earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Portland State University in Oregon in 1980, and a master's degree in 1981 and a PhD in 1986, both in economics from Brown University. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 1985.
