Dale Thomas Mortensen (February 2, 1939 – January 9, 2014) was an American economist and winner of the

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...

Early life and education

Mortensen was born in Enterprise, Oregon. He received his BA in economics from

Willamette University Willamette University is a private liberal arts college with locations in Salem and Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest college in the Western United States. Originally named the Oregon Institute, the school was an unaffiliated ...

and his PhD in Economics from

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

Career

Mortensen had been on the faculty of

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

since 1965 and a professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences at the

Kellogg School of Management The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (also known as Kellogg) is the business school of Northwestern University, a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1908, Kellogg is one of the oldest and most p ...

since 1980. He was the Niels Bohr Visiting Professor at the School of Economics and Management,

Aarhus University Aarhus University ( da, Aarhus Universitet, abbreviated AU) is a public research university with its main campus located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Gr ...

, from 2006 to 2010. He was awarded the

jointly with Christopher A. Pissarides from the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 milli ...

and

Peter A. Diamond Peter Arthur Diamond (born , 1940) is an American economist known for his analysis of U.S. Social Security policy and his work as an advisor to the Advisory Council on Social Security in the late 1980s and 1990s. He was awarded the Nobel Memoria ...

from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

in 2010 "for their analysis of markets with

search Searching or search may refer to: Computing technology * Search algorithm, including keyword search ** :Search algorithms * Search and optimization for problem solving in artificial intelligence * Search engine technology, software for find ...

frictions".The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2010 Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen, Christopher A. Pissarides
official web site In May 2011, Mortensen was awarded an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Willamette University. He was married to

Beverly Mortensen Beverly P. Mortensen is a musician, composer, and scholar of ancient Jewish religion at Northwestern University. In 2006, she published the book ''The Priesthood in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Renewing the Profession'' (Studies in Aramaic Interpretatio ...

, also a Northwestern Professor. Mortensen's research focused on labor economics,

macroeconomics Macroeconomics (from the Greek prefix ''makro-'' meaning "large" + ''economics'') is a branch of economics dealing with performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. For example, using interest rates, taxes, and ...

and

economic theory Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyze ...

. He is especially known for his pioneering work on the

search and matching theory In economics, search and matching theory, is a mathematical framework attempting to describe the formation of mutually beneficial relationships over time. It is closely related to stable matching theory. Search and matching theory has been e ...

frictional unemployment Frictional unemployment is a form of unemployment reflecting the gap between someone voluntarily leaving a job and finding another. As such, it is sometimes called search unemployment, though it also includes gaps in employment when transferring ...

. He extended the insights from this work to study labor turnover and reallocation, research and development, and personal relationships. Mortensen was a past president of the Society of Economic Dynamics and one of the founding editors of the ''Review of Economic Dynamics''.

Death

Mortensen died of stage 4 lung cancer on January 9, 2014, at the age of 74, at his home in Wilmette.

Awards, fellowships

Alexander Henderson Award The Tepper School of Business is the business school of Carnegie Mellon University. It is located in the university's campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US. The school offers degrees from the undergraduate through doctoral levels, in addition t ...

, 1965 * Fellow,

Econometric Society The Econometric Society is an international society of academic economists interested in applying statistical tools to their field. It is an independent organization with no connections to societies of professional mathematicians or statisticians. ...

, 1979 * Fellow,

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

, 2000 *

IZA Prize in Labor Economics The Institute for the Study of Labor awards a prize each year (from 2016 on every two years in turn with the IZA Young Labor Economist Award) for outstanding academic achievement in the field of labor economics. The IZA Prize in Labor Economics has ...

, 2005 *

Nobel Prize in Economics The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...

, 2010; joint with Christopher A. Pissarides and

The Dale T. Mortensen Building

In February 2011, Mortensen had a building named in his honor at

. The Dale T. Mortensen Building is the central hub for all international and PhD activities and contains the new PhD House, Dale's Café, the university's International Centre and the new IC Dormitory for international PhD students.

Selected publications

* D. Mortensen and E. Nagypál (2007), 'More on unemployment and vacancy fluctuations.' ''Review of Economic Dynamics'' 10 (3), pp. 327–47. * D. Mortensen (2005), ''Wage Dispersion: Why Are Similar Workers Paid Differently?'', MIT Press. * K. Burdett and D. Mortensen (1998), 'Wage differentials, employer size, and unemployment.' ''International Economic Review'' 39, pp. 257–73. * D. Mortensen and C. Pissarides (1994), 'Job creation and job destruction in the theory of unemployment.' ''Review of Economic Studies'' 61, pp. 397–415. * D. Mortensen (1986), 'Job search and labor market analysis.' Ch. 15 of ''Handbook of Labor Economics'', vol. 2, O. Ashenfelter and R. Layard, eds., North-Holland. * D. Mortensen (1982), 'Property rights and efficiency of mating, racing, and related games.' ''American Economic Review'' 72 (5), pp. 968–79. * D. Mortensen (1982), 'The matching process as a non-cooperative/bargaining game.' In ''The Economics of Information and Uncertainty'', J. McCall, ed., NBER, . * D. Mortensen (1972), 'A theory of wage and employment dynamics.' In ''Microeconomic Foundations of Employment and Inflation Theory'', E. Phelps et al., eds., Norton,

References

External links

*
Dale T. Mortensen
official site

at School of Economics and Management at

* including the Nobel lecture ''Markets with Search Frictions and the DMP Model'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mortensen, Dale T. 1939 births 2014 deaths Labor economists Fellows of the Econometric Society Willamette University alumni Kellogg School of Management faculty Nobel laureates in Economics People from Enterprise, Oregon Carnegie Mellon University alumni 20th-century American writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American economists 21st-century American economists Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association National Bureau of Economic Research Economists from Oregon