'I'm just an ordinary guy': 2021 Nobelist David Card

David Card, a labor economist and professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, has won the 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for work that challenged orthodoxy and dramatically shifted understanding of inequality and the social and economic forces that impact low-wage workers. He was awarded half the prize, with the other half shared by economists Joshua Angrist of MIT and Guido Imbens of Stanford University.

Card is best known for pioneering studies in the 1990s that remain acutely relevant today, as they questioned the prevailing assumptions about the impact of immigration on native-born U.S. workers and the effect of minimum wage increases on domestic job growth.

Card, 65, a native of Ontario, Canada, is UC Berkeley’s sixth economist to win the Nobel Prize in economics and the campus’s 26th Nobel laureate overall. His predecessors are Oliver Williamson, (2009), George Akerlof (2001), Daniel McFadden (2000), John Harsanyi (1994) and Gérard Debreu (1983). Imbens, one of Card’s two co-winners, was a member of UC Berkeley’s faculty from 2002 to 2006, as a professor of economics and of agricultural and resource economics, before he left for Harvard University and then Stanford.

Announcing the award today in Stockholm, Sweden, the Economic Sciences Prize Committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences credited Card for his impact on policy debates over immigration, welfare reform and inequality.

Card’s work “helped to answer important questions for society,” said Peter Fredriksson, chair of the committee at a news conference in Sweden. Card’s work, he added, “challenged conventional wisdom, which led to new studies and additional insights.”

Taken together, the work by the three economists “revolutionized empirical work” in economics, the committee said. (Cont'd...)
Video by Roxanne Makasdjian and Alan Toth

[charlesriggins]

David is really a mild, kind, humorous and chill guy. I took his ECON-142 in 2019. It was absolutely great.

[jjang]

The statement he made in the end 'those people aren't going to change their views, we just hope to affect the new generations.' Struck me

[sukilee]

"The only thing I know is that I know nothing." The theory evolved, argument evolved. Be humble. Also, two professors solved the methodology. True definition for Teamwork among different schools and different colleges.

[marcoslabra]

Desde México le mandamos felicitaciones, haber cuando viene a celebrar con toda la bandera de aquí

[bastabey]

God bless that girlfriend who showed him her economics book, otherwise we ll be stuck with another theoretical physicist

[Anticolonial]

si hubiera sido americano nunca abría mostrado sus descubrimientos, pero sería silenciado por las corporationes with enormous salaries and nobody will see this discover.

[danic]

"High minimum wage does not necessarily lead to fewer jobs".??? Great counter example: US (High min wage country) vs Asia... ie China (no min wage), GDP just explains it all. Big corps like Apple, Nike, Tesla etc... all moves to lower min wage country.
So how is higher min wage will lead to more jobs???

[WeddingDJBusiness]

Interestingly, he talked about the minimum wage in the early textbooks as saying it was a bad idea- Sweden doesn't have a minimum wage and is doing great. Sweden had to eliminate many of the socialist ideals that were bankrupting the country. They are now prospering once again. I used to think that the minimum wage was a good idea, but I'm not too sure now. Sweden has some engaging lessons on what has worked and what hasn't. They now adopt a very free market, and it is allowing an innovative marketplace. Sadly the Nobel prizes where Al Gore can win one for the misinformation he spread have lost their appeal.