Steven Neil Durlauf (born August 12, 1958) is an American social scientist and economist. He is currently Steans Professor in Educational Policy at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at 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 ...

. Durlauf was previously the

William F. Vilas William Freeman Vilas (July 9, 1840August 27, 1908) was an American lawyer, politician, and United States Senator. In the U.S. Senate, he represented the state of Wisconsin for one term, from 1891 to 1897. As a prominent Bourbon Democrat, he wa ...

Research Professor and Kenneth J. Arrow Professor of Economics at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

. As of 2021, is also a Part Time Professor at the New Economic School. Durlauf's research spans many topics in microeconomics and macroeconomics. His most important substantive contributions involve the areas of poverty, inequality and economic growth. Much of his research has attempted to integrate sociological ideas into economic analysis. His major methodological contributions include both economic theory and econometrics. He helped pioneer the application of statistical mechanics techniques to the modelling of socioeconomic behavior and has also developed identification analyses for the empirical analogs of these models. Other research has focused on the development of techniques for policy evaluation and the construction of an econometrics of cross country income differences. Durlauf is also known as a critic of the use of the concept of social capital by social scientists and has also challenged the ways that agent-based modelling and complexity theory have been employed by social and natural scientists to study socioeconomic phenomena. Finally, Durlauf has written on issues of fairness and justice, developing normative justifications for "associational redistribution" which refers to the idea that policies such as affirmative action should be understood as redistributing various social and economic ties.

Education

Durlauf received his B.A. in Economics from

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 ...

in 1980, and his Ph.D. in Economics from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

in 1986.

Honors, awards and positions

Durlauf was elected a Fellow of the

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 ...

in 2011. He is also a Fellow of the

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. ...

, the Society for Economic Measurement, the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory and the International Association for Applied Econometrics. He is a research associate at the

National Bureau of Economic Research The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...

. From 2010 to 2022, Durlauf was a co-director of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working group. Durlauf was Editor of the ''

Journal of Economic Literature The ''Journal of Economic Literature'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal, published by the American Economic Association, that surveys the academic literature in economics. It was established in 1963 as the ''Journal of Economic Abstracts'',

'' from 2013 to 2022. He previously served as General Editor of the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. He is currently director of the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility.

External links

Faculty Homepage

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Durlauf, Steven Neil Living people 1958 births 21st-century American economists Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Economics journal editors Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard College alumni Fellows of the Econometric Society Econometricians University of Chicago Booth School of Business faculty