David Card | |
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![]() Card in 2021 | |
Born | 1956 (age 67–68) Guelph, Ontario, Canada |
Nationality |
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Education | Queen's University at Kingston (BA) Princeton University (MA, PhD) |
Academic career | |
Field | Labour economics |
Institutions | |
Doctoral advisor | Orley Ashenfelter [2] |
Doctoral students | Thomas Lemieux Phillip B. Levine Christoph M. Schmidt Michael Greenstone Jesse Rothstein Philip Oreopoulos David Lee Janet Currie Enrico Moretti Heather Royer Elizabeth Cascio Ethan G. Lewis Nicole Maestas |
Awards | John Bates Clark Medal (1995) IZA Labor Economics Award (2006) [3] Frisch Medal (2008) BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2014) Jacob Mincer Award (2019) Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2021) |
Information at IDEAS / RePEc |
David Edward Card (born 1956) is a Canadian-American [4] labour economist and the Class of 1950 Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has been since 1997. He was awarded half of the 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for his empirical contributions to labour economics", with Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens jointly awarded the other half. [5] [6]
David Card was born in Guelph, Ontario, in 1956. [7] His parents were dairy farmers. [8] Card is a graduate of John F. Ross Collegiate Vocational Institute, he attended it between the years of 1970 to 1975. [9] Card was originally pursuing a degree in physics, before eventually switching to economics. [10] He then earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in 1978 and his Ph.D. degree in economics in 1983 from Princeton University, after completing a doctoral dissertation titled "Indexation in long term labor contracts" under the supervision of Orley Ashenfelter. [11] [12]
Card began his career at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, where he was assistant professor of Business Economics for 2 years. He was on the faculty at Princeton from 1983 to 1997, before moving to Berkeley; from 1990 to 1991 he served as a visiting professor at Columbia University. [13] From 1988 to 1992, Card was Associate Editor of the Journal of Labor Economics and from 1993 to 1997, he was co-editor of Econometrica . From 2002 to 2005, he was co-editor of The American Economic Review . [13]
In the early 1990s, Card received much attention for his finding, together with his then Princeton University colleague Alan B. Krueger that, contrary to widely accepted beliefs among economists, the minimum wage increase in New Jersey did not result in job reduction of fast food companies in that state. [14] [15] [6] While the methodology (see difference in differences) and its claim have been disputed (see minimum wage for discussion), later studies of minimum wage increases have tended to confirm Card and Krueger's findings, [16] and many economists, including Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, [17] accept these findings. [18]
David Card has also made contributions to research on immigration, [19] education, [20] job training and inequality. Much of Card's work centers on a comparison between the United States and Canada in various situations. On immigration, Card's research has shown that the economic impact of new immigrants is minimal. Card has done several case studies on the rapid assimilation of immigrant groups, finding that they have little or no impact on wages. For example, Card studied the economic impacts of the Mariel boatlift, and compared the economic effects in Miami to those in Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles and Tampa, which receive fewer Cuban immigrants. [8] Card found that despite the drastic increase in low-skilled labor in Miami by 7%, wages for the low-skilled workers were not significantly affected. Furthermore, he found that overall unemployment rates and wages for the labor market as a whole in Miami were unchanged by the sudden influx of immigrants. [21] [8] In an interview with The New York Times , Card said, "I honestly think the economic arguments [against immigration] are second order. They are almost irrelevant." [8] This does not imply, however, that Card believes immigration should be increased, merely that immigrants do not pose a threat to the labour market. [8]
Despite the fact that Card sometimes researches issues with strong political implications, he does not publicly take a stand on political issues or make policy suggestions. Nevertheless, his work is regularly cited in support of increased immigration and minimum wage legislation. [22] [21]
He served as the expert witness for Harvard in the Harvard admissions case. [23]
David Card and Alan B. Krueger utilized their work to challenge a widely held belief that a higher minimum wage would result in lower employment, a belief held by 90 percent of professional economists. [24] They were dissatisfied with the existing approach that was used to evaluate minimum wage and employment, instead desiring natural experiments that would provide stronger evidence on the topic. Though a major purpose of the book was to showcase this misconception, perhaps an even greater purpose was present, through the usage of natural experiments the authors acted as a driving force in the establishment of empirical research to test the underlying economic model, furthering their purpose of further establishing economic research as a quantitative, research based field. [25]
Myth and Measurement is a monumental economic work, which contains two primary conclusions, minimum wage does not necessarily adversely influence employment and a need to establish new models that are applied to the low-wage market. [26] Throughout the work the usage of numerous samples of minimum wage changes, state and federal, demonstrates that there is no notable decrease in employment when the wage floor level is raised, as demonstrated through all data in the work indicating either an increase, no change, or insignificant decrease in employment. [27] The final conclusion derives from the many anomalies present in minimum wage when evaluated under the standard market model, such as differences in wages amongst same skill workers, workers of varying ability receiving the same pay, the spillover effect, and minimum wage employers attracting more applicants than if minimum wage was not present, these conclusions suggest that the low-wage market does not fall into accordance with the standard labor model. [28] The proposed alternative models place an emphasis on avoiding the problems of the standard labor market, these models are non-static, placing an emphasis on being dynamic. These models would not make the same unambiguous predictions and would allow for consideration of other wage setting factors, thus allowing for a more complete encasement of the low-wage market. Card describes two key implications of the work, policy and economic research implications. The first described implication of the work describes that there is too great of an emphasis placed on minimum wage policy, with those in opposition exaggerating the influence on employment and those in favor overemphasizing the effects on poverty. The focus of the policy debate, according to Card, should be the distributional effects of minimum wage, how minimum wage influences wage inequality, which the findings present suggest that it will counteract the growth experienced in the 1980s. [29] Finally, Card believes that this work will greatly influence economic research in two manners, establishing prespecified conditions and the importance of firm-level microdata. Prespecified conditions will allow for broad agreement amongst researchers in regard to methodology, he believed that this work would allow for acceptance of this standard in economics. The value of firm-level microdata which would allow for a deeper understanding of factors that determine wages and alter the analysis of a variety of topics allowing for greater precision in data sets. Card concludes the work through emphasizing the importance of empirical research to create a more complete understanding of the low-wage market. [30]
He was the recipient of the 1995 John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to "that American economist under the age of forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge" for his work related to the minimum wage as well as the economic effects of the Mariel boatlift. [8] He gave the 2009 Richard T. Ely Lecture of the American Economic Association in San Francisco. A 2011 survey of economics professors named Card their fifth favorite living economist under the age of 60. [31] Along with N. Gregory Mankiw, he was elected vice president of the American Economic Association for 2014. [32]
He has received along with Richard Blundell the 2014 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics, Finance and Management category for "their contributions to empirical microeconomics," in the words of the jury's citation. "Motivated by important empirical questions, they developed and estimated appropriate econometric models, making significant methodological contributions in the process. Both are known for their attention to institutional detail, careful and innovative research design, rigorous application of econometric tools, and dispassionate reporting of results." [33]
Card was elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2021. [34] He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2021 for research showing that an increase in minimum wage does not lead to less hiring, and immigrants do not lower pay for native-born workers. [6]
Labour economics, or labor economics, seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of the markets for wage labour. Labour is a commodity that is supplied by labourers, usually in exchange for a wage paid by demanding firms. Because these labourers exist as parts of a social, institutional, or political system, labour economics must also account for social, cultural and political variables.
A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Because minimum wages increase the cost of labor, companies often try to avoid minimum wage laws by using gig workers, by moving labor to locations with lower or nonexistent minimum wages, or by automating job functions. Minimum wage policies can vary significantly between countries or even within a country, with different regions, sectors, or age groups having their own minimum wage rates. These variations are often influenced by factors such as the cost of living, regional economic conditions, and industry-specific factors.
A living wage is defined as the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs. This is not the same as a subsistence wage, which refers to a biological minimum, or a solidarity wage, which refers to a minimum wage tracking labor productivity. Needs are defined to include food, housing, and other essential needs such as clothing. The goal of a living wage is to allow a worker to afford a basic but decent standard of living through employment without government subsidies. Due to the flexible nature of the term "needs", there is not one universally accepted measure of what a living wage is and as such it varies by location and household type. A related concept is that of a family wage – one sufficient to not only support oneself, but also to raise a family.
Dale Thomas Mortensen was an American economist, a professor at Northwestern University, and a winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Alan Bennett Krueger was an American economist who was the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton University and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, nominated by President Barack Obama, from May 2009 to October 2010, when he returned to Princeton. He was nominated in 2011 by Obama as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and served in that office from November 2011 to August 2013.
Orley Clark Ashenfelter is an American economist and the Joseph Douglas Green 1895 Professor of Economics at Princeton University. His areas of specialization include labor economics, econometrics, and law and economics. He was influential in contributing to the applied turn in economics.
In the United States, the minimum wage is set by U.S. labor law and a range of state and local laws. The first federal minimum wage was instituted in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but later found to be unconstitutional. In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act established it at 25¢ an hour. Its purchasing power peaked in 1968, at $1.60 In 2009, it was increased to $7.25 per hour, and has not been increased since.
David Neumark is an American economist and a Chancellor's Professor of Economics at the University of California, Irvine, where he also directs the Economic Self-Sufficiency Policy Research Institute.
Joshua David Angrist is an Israeli–American economist and Ford Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Angrist, together with Guido Imbens, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2021 "for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships".
The Institute for the Study of Labor awards a prize each year for outstanding academic achievement in the field of labor economics. The IZA Prize in Labor Economics has become a highly prestigious science award in international economics, is the only international science prize awarded exclusively to labor economists and is considered the most important award in labor economics worldwide. The prize was established in 2002 and is awarded annually through a nomination process and decided upon by the IZA Prize Committee, which consists of internationally renowned labor economists. As a part of the prize, all IZA Prize Laureates contribute a volume as an overview of their most significant findings to the IZA Prize in Labor Economics Series published by Oxford University Press.
In economics, a monopsony is a market structure in which a single buyer substantially controls the market as the major purchaser of goods and services offered by many would-be sellers. The microeconomic theory of monopsony assumes a single entity to have market power over all sellers as the only purchaser of a good or service. This is a similar power to that of a monopolist, which can influence the price for its buyers in a monopoly, where multiple buyers have only one seller of a good or service available to purchase from.
The Employment Policies Institute is a fiscally conservative, non-profit American think tank that conducts and publishes research on employment issues, particularly aimed towards reducing the minimum wage. It was established in 1991 by Richard Berman, and it has been described as "a nonprofit research group that studies issues of entry-level employment."
The Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, also known as Kitagawa decomposition, is a statistical method that explains the difference in the means of a dependent variable between two groups by decomposing the gap into within-group and between-group differences in the effect of the explanatory variable.
Alan Manning is a British economist and professor of economics at the London School of Economics.
Thomas Lemieux is a Canadian economist and professor at the University of British Columbia.
Stephen Jonathan Machin is a British economist and professor of economics at the London School of Economics (LSE). Moreover, he is currently director of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) and is a fellow of the British Academy, the Society of Labor Economists and the European Economic Association. His current research interests include labour market inequality, the economics of education, and the economics of crime.
Francis Kramarz is a French economist who works as Professor at the École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique (ENSAE), where he has been directing the Center for Research in Economics and Statistics (CREST). He is one of the leading labour economists in France.
Ellora Derenoncourt is an American economist. She is an assistant professor of Economics in the Industrial Relations Section of the Department of Economics at Princeton University and a member of the Industrial Relations Section of Princeton Economics. She was previously at the Department of Economics and assistant professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. Her work focuses on labor economics, economic history and the study of inequality. Her research on racial inequality in the United States has been featured on NPR, New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
The 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was divided one half awarded to the American-Canadian David Card "for his empirical contributions to labour economics", the other half jointly to Israeli-American Joshua Angrist and Dutch-American Guido W. Imbens "for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships." The Nobel Committee stated their reason behind the decision, saying:
"This year's Laureates – David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens – have shown that natural experiments can be used to answer central questions for society, such as how minimum wages and immigration affect the labour market. They have also clarified exactly which conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn using this research approach. Together, they have revolutionised empirical research in the economic sciences."
James Malcomson is a British-Irish economist. He is an emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford and emeritus Fellow of All Souls College. He is a specialist in the fields of labour economics and contract theory.
Prof. Card remains a Canadian citizen. His family still lives on the farm where he grew up.