The Nobel Laureates!

NEVER use this word

This year’s Nobel prize in economics goes to David Card, Josh Angrist, and Guido Imbens. Not a single economist was surprised. These three have clearly revolutionized the field of economics since the 1990s and turned it into the powerhouse it is today.

Last year I did a video on 5 Rules for Picking Economics Classes. Rule #1 was take econometrics as soon as possible. These guys are why. Econometrics had been around for a while, but it could only provide correlations. We couldn’t (seriously) say that we had estimated a causal relationship. Card, Angrist, and Imbens turned econometrics into a tool that let us estimate the causal effect of an increase in the minimum wage, the returns to education, and the effects of immigration.

This group, and many others, gave us a way to explain economic research to our parents. “See these two groups of people? They are the same in every way, except one group got the treatment. That’s how I’m estimating causality.”

It’s hard to understate how influential these economists have been. I’m working on a paper right now that looks a lot like work David Card did on Cuban migration to Florida. Angrist has one of the most popular econometrics books on the market (Mostly Harmless Econometrics). And Imbens is still developing new methods to help us understand causality (here’s an online lecture).

There is an unnamed laureate this year. I might do a video on him if there’s interest.

I also have a good story below about one of the laureates. But first, this week’s video.

Statement of Purpose Advice

If you read this newsletter regularly, then you saw my SOP advice over the last few weeks. I condensed it into a video to help consolidate the principles. Hopefully it helps!

Nobel Laureates in Graduate School

Years ago I read this piece on Josh Angrist. I remember it because I was in graduate school and it detailed some of his life as a graduate student.

Someone shared it on twitter today because there was a detail about his graduate career that’s good for students to keep in mind:

Opportunity was knocking, but instead Angrist went to Israel. He entered a master’s program in economics at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but “I didn’t do well, and I dropped out,” he says. It was there that he met his wife, Mira.

This guy dropped out of a master’s program in economics…and now has a Nobel prize in it. Hopefully you find that encouraging!