Edward L. Glaeser
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Edward Ludwig Glaeser (born May 1, 1967) is an American economist and Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
. He is also Director for the Cities Research Programme at the
International Growth Centre The International Growth Centre (IGC) is an economic research centre based at the London School of Economics, operated in partnership with University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government. The centre was launched in December 2008 and is fund ...
. He was educated at The Collegiate School in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
before obtaining his A.B. in economics from
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
and his Ph.D. in economics from the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
. Glaeser joined the faculty of Harvard in 1992, where he is currently (as of January 2018) the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor at the Department of Economics. He previously served as the Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston (both at
Harvard Kennedy School The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...
). He is a senior fellow at the
Manhattan Institute The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (renamed in 1981 from the International Center for Economic Policy Studies) is a conservative American think tank focused on domestic policy and urban affairs, established in Manhattan in 1978 by Anto ...
, and a contributing editor of ''
City Journal ''City Journal'' is a public policy magazine and website, published by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, that covers a range of topics on urban affairs, such as policing, education, housing, and other issues. The magazine ...
''. He was also an editor of the ''
Quarterly Journal of Economics ''The Quarterly Journal of Economics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Oxford University Press for the Harvard University Department of Economics. Its current editors-in-chief are Robert J. Barro, Lawrence F. Katz, Nathan ...
''. Glaeser and
John A. List John August List (born September 25, 1968) is an American economist known for establishing Field experiment, field experiments as a tool in empirical economic analysis. He works at the University of Chicago, where he serves as Kenneth C. Griffin ...
were mentioned as reasons why the AEA committee began to award the Clark Medal annually in 2009. According to a review in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', his book titled ''Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier'' (2011) summarizes Glaeser's years of research into the role that cities play in fostering human achievement and "is at once polymathic and vibrant". Edward Glaeser chairs the Advisory Council of Policy Exchange's Liveable London Unit.


Family background and influence

Glaeser was born in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, New York to Ludwig Glaeser (1930-September 27, 2006) and Elizabeth Glaeser. His father was born in Berlin in 1930, lived in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
and moved to
West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
in the 1950s. Ludwig Glaeser received a degree in architecture from the
Darmstadt University of Technology Darmstadt () is a city in the state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the fourth largest city in the state of Hesse a ...
and a Ph.D. in art history from the
Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...
before joining the staff at the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in New York City in 1963. He would go on to be curator of the Department of Architecture and Design in 1969. Glaeser said, about his father, "His passion for cities and buildings nurtured my own". Glaeser described how his father supported new construction and change if it met aesthetic standards. According to Glaeser, his father also "disliked dreary postwar apartment buildings and detested ugly suburban communities", but Glaeser, himself found much to admire in sprawl in so far as it facilitates "the ability of people to live as they choose". Yet Glaeser's work also argues against local anti-density zoning laws and federal government policies that encourage sprawl, such as the mortgage tax deduction and federal highway programs. Glaeser's career was also reportedly influenced by his mother, Elizabeth Glaeser, who worked at
Mobil Corporation ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 3 ...
as head of Capital Markets for 20 years before joining
Deloitte & Touche Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is an international professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of profession ...
as Director of the Corporate Risk Practice. She earned an M.B.A. degree when Edward was ten years old and occasionally brought him to her classes. He remembers her teaching him micro-economics lessons, such as marginal cost price theory. Glaeser admired many aspects of the work of
Jane Jacobs Jane Jacobs (''née'' Butzner; 4 May 1916 – 25 April 2006) was an American-Canadian journalist, author, theorist, and activist who influenced urban studies, sociology, and economics. Her book '' The Death and Life of Great American Cities ...
; they both argue that "cities are good for the environment." He disagreed with her on densification through height. He advocates for higher buildings in cities while Jacobs deplored the 1950s and 1960s public housing projects inspired by Le Corbusier. The austere, dehumanizing New York high rises eventually became the "projects" straying far from their original intent. She believed in preserving West
Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
's smaller historical buildings for personal, economic and aesthetic reasons. Glaeser grew up in a
high rise A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdictio ...
and believes that higher buildings provide more affordable housing. He calls for elimination or lessening of height limitation restrictions, preservationist statutes and other zoning laws.


Writings

Glaeser has published at a rate of almost five articles per year since 1992 in leading peer-reviewed academic economics journals, in addition to many books, other articles, blogs, and op-eds. Glaeser has made substantial contributions to the empirical study of
urban economics Urban economics is broadly the economic study of urban areas; as such, it involves using the tools of economics to analyze urban issues such as crime, education, public transit, housing, and local government finance. More specifically, it is a bra ...
. In particular, his work examining the historical evolution of economic hubs like
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
and
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
has had major influence on both economics and urban geography. Glaeser also has written on a variety of other topics, ranging from social economics to the
economics of religion The economics of religion concerns both the application of the techniques of economics to the study of religion and the relationship between economic and religious behaviours. Contemporary writers on the subject trace it back to Adam Smith (1776). ...
, from both contemporary and historical perspectives. His work has earned the admiration of a number of prominent economists.
George Akerlof George Arthur Akerlof (born June 17, 1940) is an American economist and a university professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and Koshland Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. ...
(2001 Economics Nobel Prize) praised Glaeser as a "genius", and
Gary Becker Gary Stanley Becker (; December 2, 1930 – May 3, 2014) was an American economist who received the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, and was a leader of ...
(1992 Economics Nobel Prize) commented that before Glaeser "urban economics was dried up. No one had come up with some new ways to look at cities." Despite the seeming disparateness of the topics he has examined, most of Glaeser's work can be said to apply economic theory (and especially
price theory Microeconomics is a branch of mainstream economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics foc ...
and game theory) to explain human economic and social behavior. Glaeser develops models using these tools and then evaluates them with real world data, so as to verify their applicability. A number of his papers in applied economics are co-written with his Harvard colleague, Andrei Shleifer. In 2006, Glaeser began writing a regular column for the ''
New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New York ...
''. He writes a monthly column for ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
''. He blogs frequently for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' at Economix, and he has written essays for ''
The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...
''. Although his most recent book, ''Triumph of the City'' (2011), celebrates the city, he moved with his wife and children to the suburbs around 2006 because of "home interest deduction, highway infrastructure and local school systems". He explained that this move is further "evidence of how public policy stacks the deck against cities. cause of all the good that comes out of city life—both personal and municipal—people should take a hard look at the policies that are driving residents into the suburbs.


Contribution to urban economics and political economy

Glaeser has published in leading economic journals on many topics in the field of urban economics. In early work, he found that over decades, industrial diversity contributes more to economic growth than specialization, which contrasts with work by other urban economists like Vernon Henderson of Brown University. He has published influential studies on
inequality Inequality may refer to: Economics * Attention inequality, unequal distribution of attention across users, groups of people, issues in etc. in attention economy * Economic inequality, difference in economic well-being between population groups * ...
. His work with
David Cutler David Matthew Cutler (born June 22, 1965) is the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard University. He was given a five-year term appointment of Harvard College Professor, which recognizes excellence in undergraduate teaching. H ...
of Harvard identified harmful effects of
segregation Segregation may refer to: Separation of people * Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space * School segregation * Housing segregation * Racial segregation, separation of humans ...
on black youth in terms of wages, joblessness, education attainment, and likelihood of teen pregnancy. They found that the effect of segregation was so harmful to blacks that if black youth lived in perfectly integrated metropolitan areas, their success would be no different from white youth on three of four measures and only slightly different on the fourth. In 2000 Glaeser, Kahn and Rappaport challenged the 1960s urban land use theory that claimed the poor live disproportionately in cities because richer consumers who wanted more land chose to live in the suburbs where available land was less expensive. They found that the reasons for the higher rate of poverty in cities (17% in 1990) compared to suburbs (7.4%) in the United States were the accessibility of public transportation and pro-poor central cities' policies which encouraged more poor people to choose to move to and live in central cities. He reiterated this in an interview in 2011, "The fact that there is urban poverty is not something cities should be ashamed of. Because cities don't make people poor. Cities attract poor people. They attract poor people because they deliver things that people need most of all—economic opportunity." Glaeser and Harvard economist
Alberto Alesina Alberto Francesco Alesina (29 April 1957 – 23 May 2020) was an Italian political economist. Described as one of the leading political economists of his generation, he published many influential works in both the economics and political science ...
compared public policies to reduce inequality and poverty in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
with
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
(Alesina and Glaeser 2004). Differing attitudes towards those less fortunate partially explain differences in the redistribution of income from rich to poor. Sixty percent of Europeans and 29% of Americans believe that the poor are trapped in poverty. Only 30% of Americans believe that luck determines income compared with 60% of Europeans. Sixty percent of Americans believe the poor are lazy while only 24% of Europeans believe this to be true. But they conclude that racial diversity in the United States, with the dominant group being white and the poor mainly non-white, led to resistance to reduce inequality in the United States through redistribution. Surprisingly the United States political structures are centuries old and remain much more conservative than their European counterparts as the latter have undergone much political change. He has also made important contributions in the field of social capital by identifying underlying economic incentives for social association and volunteering. For example, he and colleague Denise DiPasquale found that homeowners are more engaged citizens than renters. In experimental work, he found that students reporting being more trusting also act in more trustworthy ways. In recent years, Glaeser has argued that human capital explains much of the variation in urban and metropolitan level prosperity." He has extended the argument to the international level, arguing that the high levels of human capital, embodied by European settlers in the
New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...
and elsewhere, explains the development of freer institutions and economic growth in those countries over centuries. In other work, he finds that human capital is associated with reductions in corruption and other improvements in government performance. During the 2000s, Glaeser's empirical research has offered a distinctive explanation for the increase in housing prices in many parts of the United States over the past several decades. Unlike many pundits and commentators, who attribute skyrocketing housing prices to a
housing bubble A housing bubble (or a housing price bubble) is one of several types of asset price bubbles which periodically occur in the market. The basic concept of a housing bubble is the same as for other asset bubbles, consisting of two main phases. Firs ...
created by Alan Greenspan's monetary policies, Glaeser pointed out that the increase in housing prices was not uniform throughout the country (Glaeser and Gyourko 2002). Glaeser and Gyourko (2002) argued that while the price of housing was significantly higher than construction costs in
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
and
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
and
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, in most of the United States, the price of housing remained "close to the marginal, physical costs of new construction." They argued that dramatic differences in price of housing versus construction costs occurred in places where permits for new buildings had become difficult to obtain (since the 1970s). Compounded with strict zoning laws the supply of new housing in these cities was seriously disrupted. Real estate markets were thus unable to accommodate increases in demand, and housing prices skyrocketed. Glaeser also points to the experience of states such as
Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
and
Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
, which experienced tremendous growth in demand for real estate during the same period but, because of looser regulations and the comparative ease of obtaining new building permits, did not witness abnormal increases in housing prices. Glaeser and Gyourko (2008) observed that in spite of the mortgage meltdown and the ensuing drop in housing prices, Americans continue to face housing affordability challenges. Housing policy makers, however, need to recognize that housing affordability differs from region to region and affects classes differently. Public policies should reflect those differences. The middle class confront affordability issues that could be resolved by allowing for more new home constructions by removing zoning restrictions at the municipal level. Glaeser and Gyourko (2008) recommend direct income transfers for low income families to resolve their specific housing needs rather than government interference in the housing market itself. Glaeser (2011) claimed that public policy in Houston, Texas, the only city in the United States with no
zoning code Zoning is a method of urban planning in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into areas called zones, each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a si ...
and therefore, a very elastic housing supply, enabled construction to respond to the demand of a plentiful number of new affordable houses even in 2006. He argued that this kept Houston prices flat while elsewhere they escalated.


Contribution to health economics

In 2003, Glaeser collaborated with
David Cutler David Matthew Cutler (born June 22, 1965) is the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard University. He was given a five-year term appointment of Harvard College Professor, which recognizes excellence in undergraduate teaching. H ...
and
Jesse Shapiro Jesse M. Shapiro is an American economist and academic. He is the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration at Harvard University, having previously held the George S. and Nancy B. Parker Professorship at Brown University. In ...
on a research paper that attempted to explain why Americans had become more obese. According to the abstract of their paper, "Why Have Americans Become More Obese?", Americans have become more obese over the past 25 years because they "have been consuming more calories. The increase in food consumption is itself the result of technological innovations which made it possible for food to be mass prepared far from the point of consumption, and consumed with lower time costs of preparation and cleaning. Price changes are normally beneficial, but may not be if people have self-control problems."


References


External links


Glaeser's homepage at the Harvard department of economics
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Glaeser, Edward 1967 births Living people American people of German descent Scientists from New York City Economists from New York (state) Princeton University alumni University of Chicago alumni Harvard University faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the Econometric Society 20th-century American economists 21st-century American economists Manhattan Institute for Policy Research Fellows of the American Academy of Political and Social Science