James J. Heckman and Daniel L. McFadden Won 2000 Nobel Prize for Advancing the Statistical Analysis of Microdata

Research Associates James J. Heckman and Daniel L. McFadden were awarded the 2000 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which cited Heckman’s development of theory and methods for analyzing selective samples and McFadden’s development of theory and methods for analyzing discrete choice. Their scholarship “resolved fundamental problems that arise in the statistical analysis of microdata,” the Academy said. 

Heckman’s research “has given policymakers new insights into areas such as education, job training, and the importance of accounting for general equilibrium in the analysis of labor markets,” the Academy said, while McFadden’s created “a way to measure how an individual's decisions about occupation or housing, for instance, reflect choices among a limited number of alternatives.”

At the time of the award, Heckman was the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, and was affiliated with the NBER’sLabor Studies, Public Economics, Children, and Economics of Education Programs. McFadden was the E. Morris Cox Chair in Economics at the University of California, Berkeley and was affiliated with the Economics of Aging Program.

More information on these Nobel laureates