Israeli-American economist Joshua Angrist was awarded the 2021 Nobel Economics Prize, along with David Card and Guido Imbens, on Monday for pioneering the use of “natural experiments” to understand the causal effects of economic policy and other events.
Naturalistic experiments use real-life situations to explore effects on the world, an approach that has spread to other fields and revolutionized empirical research.
The Canadian-born Card, 65 and professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, took home half the prize “for his empirical contributions to labor economics,” the academy said. Angrist and Imbens, of whom are 58 years old and professor of economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, shared the other half “for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships”.
Joshua D. Angrist and Guido W. Imbans has been awarded the 2021 Prize in Economic Sciences “for his methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships”.#nobel prize— Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) 11 October 2021
“I was absolutely stunned to receive a telephone call, then I was absolutely thrilled to hear the news,” Imbens said on a call with journalists in Stockholm, who said he wanted to share the award with two of his best friends. were thrilled to Angrist was the best man at his marriage.
The 2021 Nobel Economics Laureates David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens are seen on screen during the announcement of the prize at a news conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden on October 11, 2021. (Credit: Claudio Bresciani/TT News Agency/via Reuters)
— Israel Israel (@israel) 11 October 2021
Born in Columbus, Ohio, and later made aliyah in Israel, Angrist received his master’s degree and PhD in economics from Princeton University in 1987 and 1989, respectively. He later worked at both Harvard University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before joining the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he remains today.
“Congratulations to MIT Professor Joshua Angist on winning a portion of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for his methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships,” MIT tweeted.
Congratulations @MITEcon Prof. Joshua Angrist (@matrix52) on winning a share of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences for “methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relations” in memory of Alfred Nobel! pic.twitter.com/A38LZn5WwQ— Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (@MIT) 11 October 2021
Throughout his career, he has conducted several studies on labor economics and the economics of education, the latter of which he studied in schools in Israel, the United States, Colombia, and Canada. He has also written several papers on the subject of labor conditions in Israel’s West Bank and the Gaza Strip. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, in 1994, Angrist worked in the Finance Ministry’s working group on Israeli-Palestinian labor market relations.
But what may be his most important achievement was his contribution to econometrics.
“For the most part, in economics, we don’t have laboratory conditions for our studies,” explained Manuel Trejtenberg, renowned economist and former MK. “We have to tease out cause and effect from the data because we don’t have laboratory conditions. But in the late 1980s, Angrist, along with a few others, although he was the main contributor, developed a methodology to do exactly this. of. It’s a huge contribution.”
Trajtenberg praised Angrist for his achievement, saying, “He certainly deserves it.”
“It is a great honor for Israel that it won the Nobel Prize.”
Angrist’s wife Mira gave an interview to N12 after the announcement and said that they are Israelis “with every bone in their body.”
“We met at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, when they created Aaliyah… Our lives run between Israel and Boston,” Mira said. “We’re very excited right now,” she said.
Angrist’s son Noam has also worked in the fields of economics and education. He is a co-founder of the Botswana-based NGO Young1ove and a fellow at the University of Oxford, and has worked with several units of the World Bank.
Noam tweeted, “Proud of my father who has just won the Nobel Prize.” “Can’t wait for a good dinner later.”
— Noam Angrist (@angrist_noam) 11 October 2021
Angrist has maintained an active career, continuing to write papers and teach seminars, as well as releasing a Q&A video series about common questions and misconceptions about economics through Marvinal Revolution University, which is available on YouTube. can be seen.
This was not the first time Angrist had been nominated for a Nobel Prize in 2019, along with fellow Israeli Elhanan Helpman, The Associated Press reported at the time.
Angrist is also the 13th Israeli to win the Nobel Prize and the third Israeli to win it in economics. The other two to do so are Daniel Kahneman, who won in 2002 for integrating insights from psychology into economics, and Robert Aumann, who won in 2005 for his work on game theory.
Reuters contributed to this report.