Josh Blumenstock
Associate Professor, UC Berkeley School of Information
Joshua Blumenstock is a Chancellor’s Associate Professor at the U.C. Berkeley School of Information and the Goldman School of Public Policy. He is the Director of the Data-Intensive Development Lab and the co-Director of the Center for Effective Global Action. He has a Ph.D. in Information Science and a M.A. in Economics from U.C. Berkeley, and Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Physics from Wesleyan University. He is a recipient of awards including the NSF CAREER award, the Intel Faculty Early Career Honor, and the U.C. Berkeley Chancellor’s Award for Public Service.
Research Summary
Joshua Blumenstock’s research lies at the intersection of machine learning and empirical economics, and focuses on using novel data and methods to better understand the causes and consequences of global poverty. He has been involved in several projects that combine randomized control trials with large-scale data from fintech companies in Afghanistan, Colombia, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda, and the US.
David Card
Class of 1950 Professor Emeritus of Economics
Professor of the Graduate School
Nobel Laureate 2021
David Card is the 2021 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences for work that challenged orthodoxy and dramatically shifted understanding of inequality and the social and economic forces that impact low-wage workers. He was elected a fellow of the Econometric Society in 1992, and in 1998 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1995 he received the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark Prize. He was a co-recipient of the IZA Labor Economics Award in 2006, and was awarded the Frisch Medal by the Econometric Society in 2007. In 2015 he received the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award for his contributions to evidence-based economic policy.
Research Summary
His research interests include immigration, wages, education, and health insurance. His behavioral papers include the study of the effects of pay equity of work satisfaction and the impact of emotional shocks to domestic violence.
Brad DeLong
Professor, Berkeley Economics
Brad DeLong is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a fellow of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. He served in the U.S. government as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy from 1993 to 1995.
Research Summary
His research in behavioral finance includes foundational work on the noise trader model, which forms the backbone to most behavioral finance models. His recent work in the area includes an exploration of modern consumers’ incentives, intentions and behavior regarding “ethical consumption”.
William Dow
Professor of Health Policy and Management, Berkeley School of Public Health
Professor, Department of Demography
Director, Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging
Since 2005,William Dow has been the founding associate director of the Berkeley Population Center and, since 2013, the director of the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging. He has also served at the School as division head of Health Policy and Management and as the associate dean for research, and in 2018-19 served as Interim Dean of the School of Public Health. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and previously served as Senior Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Research Summary
Willim Dow research is focussed on the economic aspects of health insurance, health behaviors, and health and demographic outcomes. His work in behavioral economics focuses on designing innovative behavioral economic strategies for preventing HIV and promoting behavior change such as smoking cessation.
Paul Gertler
Professor, Economic Analysis and Policy Group, Berkeley Haas
Li Ka Shing Professor of Economics
Professor, School of Public Health
Faculty Director, Institute for Business & Social Impact
Scientific Director, Center for Effective Global Action
Paul Gertler was Chief Economist of the Human Development Network of the World Bank from 2004-2007 and the Founding Chair of the Board of Directors of the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) from 2009-2012. He is the author of the best-selling textbook “Impact Evaluation in Practice”.
Research Summary
Paul Gertler is an expert on impact evaluation, acting as principal investigator on large, multisite evaluations of programs to fight poverty and improve healthcare in Mexico, Rwanda, and around the world. His recent work in behavioral economics focuses on the role of hedonic adaptation in subjective well being of the poor.
Ben Handel
Associate Professor, Berkeley Economics
Ben Handel is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley and Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He is a 2015 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Economics and participated in the 2010 Review of Economics Studies European Tour.
Research Summary
Ben Handel’s research focuses on the microeconomics of consumer choice and market structure in the health care sector, with an emphasis on health insurance markets. His most recent research has emphasized the important role that consumer choice frictions, such as inertia and limited information, can have when assessing the welfare outcomes of different regulatory policies in health insurance markets. In addition, his work studies incentive design and adoption of information technology by medical providers.
Jonathan Kolstad
Henry J. Kaiser Chair, Economic Analysis and Policy Group, Berkeley Haas
Professor of Economics, Berkeley Economics
Jonathan Kolstad is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also the Co-director of the UC Berkeley’s Glibert Center. He is also a Co-founder and was Chief Data Scientist at Picwell.
Research Summary
Jonathan Kolstad’s research focuses on decision making in high stakes and complex environments, particularly health care. His work on information frictions and consumer choice in health insurance markets, patient response to complex insurance contracts and physician intrinsic motivation have been influential in bringing behavioral models to key questions in health economics.
Greg La Blanc
Lecturer, Economic Analysis and Policy Group, Berkeley Haas
Distinguished Teaching Fellow, Finance Group, Berkeley Haas
Greg La Blanc is the recipient of teaching awards including the Earl F. Cheit Award for Outstanding Teaching and the Berkeley EWMBA Graduate Instructor of the year. La Blanc has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in all areas of business. Prior to arriving at Berkeley Haas in 2005, La Blanc taught at Wharton, Duke, and the University of Virginia. La Blanc has also worked in competitive intelligence and litigation consulting and has advised consulting teams in finance, marketing, and strategy.
Research Summary
Greg La Blanc teaches primarily in the areas of finance and strategy in the MBA and Masters of Financial Engineering programs and in Executive Education. His research interests lie at the intersection of law, finance, and psychology, in the area of business strategy and risk management. His recent work in behavioral economics. His recent work in behavioral economics focuses on using neuroeconomic models to predict consumer behavior and understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying information-seeking behavior.
Daniel McFadden
E. Morris Cox Professor Emeritus of Economics 2000 Nobel Laureate in Economics
Daniel L. McFadden is the 2000 Nobel Laureate in Economics for his work in econometric methods for studying behavioral patterns in individual decision-making. Among his many awards and honors, he received the John Bates Clark Medal from the American Economic Association in 1975 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1977.
Research Summary
He has a long-standing interest in behavioral deviations from the standard model. His more recent focus on behavioral factors in healthcare such as understanding the role of inattention and switching costs in health plan selection, as well as examining the reliability of stated preference elicitations.
Edward Miguel
Oxfam Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics, Berkeley Economics Faculty Director, Center for Effective Global Action, UC Berkeley
Ted is a Faculty Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, has served as Associate Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics and Journal of Development Economics, is a recipient of the 2005 Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and winner of the 2005 Kenneth J. Arrow Prize awarded annually by the International Health Economics Association for the Best Paper in Health Economics.
Research Summary
His main research focus is on African economic development. His more recent behavioral research includes the study of the demand for, and effect of, commitment devices for health behavior, as well as the effect of environmental factors on economic decision-making, judgment, and destructive behavior.
Ziad Obermeyer
Blue Cross of California Distinguished Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management, Berkeley School of Public Health
Prior to his current position at Berkeley, Ziad Obermeyer was an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, where he received the Early Independence Award, the National Institutes of Health’s most prestigious award for exceptional junior scientists. He also runs the Laboratory for Systems Medicine, a collaborative effort between Berkeley and the University of Chicago, to translate large observational datasets into new ways to understand and improve the life and death decisions that providers and patients make every day.
Research Summary
Ziad Obermeyer works at the intersection of machine learning, medicine and economics. His recent research in behavioral economics explores how machine learning algorithms automate moral hazard and errors, and how prediction policy problems solved through machine learning algorithms can provide behavioral insights.
David Sraer
James J. and Marianne B. Lowrey Chair in Business, Berkeley Haas Associate professor, Berkeley Economics
David Sraer received his B.S. in applied mathematics and economics from École Polytechnique in France in 2001 and his Ph.D. in economics from the Toulouse School of Economics in 2007. He holds the James J. and Marianne B. Lowrey Chair in Business at the Haas School of Business. He is currently an associate editor at the Journal of Finance. He is also a member of the Economic Council of the French Prime Minister (CAE), a research associate at the NBER and a research affiliate at the CEPR. Before coming to Berkeley, he was an assistant professor of economics at Princeton University.
Research Summary
David Sraer works in behavioral finance and macro-finance more broadly. His recent work in behavioral economics explores risk taking behavior of managers at financially distressed firms and how managerial biases in forecasting lead to distortions in firm level investments.