David Autor named head of the Division of Economics | MIT Information

David Autor, the Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor within the MIT Division of Economics, has been named head of the Division of Economics, efficient July 1.

“David is a world-class labor economist,” says Agustín Rayo, the Kenan Sahin Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. “He’s additionally a person of knowledge and perception. I stay up for welcoming him to the college’s management crew.”

Autor’s scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, ability calls for, earnings ranges and inequality, and electoral outcomes. He serves as school co-director of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Heart on Inequality and Shaping the Way forward for Work. 

“I’ve been at MIT since 1999, and I owe my profession to the Institute, the division, and colleagues who’re as sort as they’re completed,” Autor says. “Moving into this position is an opportunity to contribute to a spot that has formed me at each stage.”

Autor succeeds Jon Gruber, the Ford Professor of Economics, who has served as division head since July 2023.

Autor says he “goals to construct on the stellar commonplace set by its school and college students whereas navigating finances tightening and a shifting political panorama.” 

“Simply as necessary, I wish to lead the division towards the alternatives that advancing AI is opening in how we educate and what we analysis,” he provides.

Autor serves as co-director of the Nationwide Bureau of Financial Analysis (NBER) Labor Research Program. He earned a BA in psychology from Tufts College in 1989 and a PhD in public coverage from Harvard College’s Kennedy College of Authorities in 1999. 

Autor has acquired quite a few awards for each his scholarship — the Nationwide Science Basis CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Basis Fellowship, the Sherwin Rosen Prize for excellent contributions to the sphere of Labor Economics, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in 2019, the Society for Progress Medal in 2021 — and for his instructing, together with the MIT MacVicar School Fellowship, the James A. and Ruth Levitan Award for excellence in instructing, the Undergraduate Financial Affiliation Educating Award, and the School Appreciation Award from the MIT Know-how and Coverage Program.

In 2020, Autor acquired the Heinz twenty fifth Particular Recognition Award from the Heinz Household Basis for his work “reworking our understanding of how globalization and technological change are impacting jobs and incomes prospects for American employees.” 

In 2023, Autor was certainly one of two researchers throughout all scientific fields who was named a NOMIS Distinguished Scientist. 

In 2024, Autor was certainly one of 5 senior students chosen by the Schmidt Sciences Basis as an AI2050 Senior Fellow.