David Autor

MIT

Professor of Economics

Description

David Autor is Ford Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, codirector of the NBER Labor Studies Program, and coleader of both the MIT Work of the Future Task Force and the JPAL Work of the Future experimental initiative. His scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, skill demands, earnings levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes. Autor has received numerous awards for both his scholarship—the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Sherwin Rosen Prize for outstanding contributions to the field of Labor Economics, and the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in 2019—and for his teaching, including the MIT MacVicar Faculty Fellowship. Most recently, Autor received the Heinz 25th Special Recognition Award from the Heinz Family Foundation for his work “transforming our understanding of how globalization and technological change are impacting jobs and earning prospects for American workers”. In 2017, Autor was recognized by Bloomberg as one of the 50 people who defined global business. In a 2019 article, the Economist magazine labeled him as “The academic voice of the American worker.” Later that same year, and with (at least) equal justification, he was christened “Twerpy MIT Economist” by John Oliver of Last Week Tonight in a segment on automation and employment.