David Card

David Card
Name	David Card
Caption	David Card in 2019
Birth date	11 August 1956
Birth place	Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Institution	University of California, Berkeley
Field	Labour economics
Alma mater	Queen's University (BA), Princeton University (PhD)
Prizes	John Bates Clark Medal (1995), Frisch Medal (2008), BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2014), Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2021)

David Card is a Canadian-American labour economist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2021, jointly with Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens, for his empirical contributions to labour economics. His pioneering use of natural experiments has fundamentally reshaped research in the field, challenging long-held assumptions about the economic impacts of minimum wage, immigration, and education.

Early life and education

Born in Guelph, Ontario, Card grew up on a dairy farm. He completed his undergraduate studies in mathematics and physics at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He then pursued graduate studies in economics, earning his PhD from Princeton University in 1983 under the supervision of Orley Ashenfelter. His doctoral dissertation focused on indexation and wage determination, foreshadowing his later empirical work.

Academic career

After completing his PhD, Card began his academic career as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He later joined the faculty of Princeton University before moving to the University of California, Berkeley in 1997, where he has remained. At Berkeley, he is the Class of 1950 Professor of Economics and has served as director of the Center for Labor Economics. He has also held visiting positions at institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.

Research and contributions

Card's research is renowned for using natural experiments to study causal relationships in labour economics. His 1993 study with Alan Krueger on the minimum wage in New Jersey and Pennsylvania famously overturned conventional wisdom by finding that a rise in the minimum wage did not reduce employment. His work on immigration, particularly a study of the Mariel boatlift's impact on the Miami labour market, found minimal effects on native workers' wages. Other significant contributions include analyses of returns to schooling, the economic effects of school resources, and the impact of unemployment insurance on job search behaviour. His methodological rigor has influenced a generation of applied economists.

Nobel Prize in Economics

In 2021, David Card was awarded one-half of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, with the other half shared by Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences specifically cited Card for his empirical contributions to labour economics. The award highlighted his studies on the effects of the minimum wage, immigration, and education, which demonstrated how natural experiments can be used to answer central societal questions. His work provided the foundation for the broader credibility revolution in empirical economics.

Awards and honors

Card has received numerous prestigious awards throughout his career. He was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 1995, given to the best economist under forty in the United States. He received the Frisch Medal from the Econometric Society in 2008 for his paper on the minimum wage. Other honors include the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in 2014, the IZA Labor Economics Award, and fellowships in the Econometric Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences. He is also a fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Personal life

David Card is married and has two children. He became a naturalized American citizen while maintaining his Canadian citizenship. Outside of academia, he is known to have an interest in music. He has collaborated extensively with fellow economists like Alan Krueger and has mentored many prominent scholars in the field of labour economics.

Category:1956 births Category:Living people Category:Canadian economists Category:American economists Category:University of California, Berkeley faculty Category:Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureates Category:John Bates Clark Medal winners