Joshua Angrist, David Card, and Guido Imbens Awarded 2021 Nobel Prize

Long-time NBER research associates Joshua Angrist, David Card, and Guido Imbens have been awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in recognition of their contributions to labor economics and the analysis of natural experiments.

In announcing the prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences explained that “Card’s studies of core questions for society, and Angrist and Imbens’ methodological contributions, have shown that natural experiments are a rich source of knowledge. Their research has substantially improved our ability to answer key causal questions, which has been of great benefit to society.” 

Angrist is the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT, Card is the Class of 1950 Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Imbens is the Applied Econometrics Professor and Professor of Economics at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.  All three are affiliated with the NBER Labor Studies Program, which Card directed for nearly a decade.  Angrist and Card are also affiliated with the NBER programs on Children and Education, and Card with the Economics of Aging program.

The Academy released both a high-level summary of the laureates’ contributions and a longer explanation of their work.

The laureates delivered their prize lectures on December 8, 2021.

• Joshua D. Angrist’s prize lecture: “Empirical strategies in economics: Illuminating the path from cause to effect”

• David Card’s prize lecture: “Design‐based research in empirical microeconomics”

• Guido W. Imbens’ prize lecture: “Causality in econometrics: methods in conversation with practice”

NBER research by Joshua D. Angrist, by David Card, and by Guido W. Imbens

Reports on the prize announcement and the economists’ work were featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

With this year’s awards, 35 current or past NBER research affiliates, and an additional six current or past members of the NBER board of directors, have received the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Affiliates previously awarded the prize are Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer, 2019; William Nordhaus and Paul Romer, 2018; Richard Thaler, 2017; Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström, 2016; Angus Deaton, 2015; Lars Hansen and Robert Shiller, 2013; Alvin Roth, 2012; Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims, 2011; Peter Diamond, 2010; Paul Krugman, 2008; Edward C. Prescott and Finn Kydland, 2004; Robert F. Engle, 2003; Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2001; James J. Heckman and Daniel L. McFadden, 2000; Robert C. Merton and Myron S. Scholes, 1997; Robert E. Lucas, Jr., 1995; and the late Dale Mortensen, 2010; Robert W. Fogel, 1993; Gary S. Becker, 1992; George J. Stigler, 1982; Theodore W. Schultz, 1979; Milton Friedman, 1976; and Simon Kuznets, 1971. In addition to this group, the six current or past members of the NBER Board of Directors who have received the prize are: George Akerlof, 2001; Robert Solow, 1987; and the late William Vickrey, 1996; Douglass North, 1993; James Tobin, 1981; and Paul Samuelson, 1970.