James Heckman, Ph.D. Professor James J. Heckman is Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago where he has served since 1973. He holds a parallel appointment as Director of Social Program Evaluation at the Harris School of Public Policy and is a Senior Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation. Professor Heckman received his B.A. in Mathematics from Colorado College and then went on to earn an M.A. and a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University. Professor Heckman edited the Econometric Monograph series volume Longitudinal Analysis of Labor Market Data and is the author of two forthcoming technical monographs: 1) Evaluating Social Programs: Methodological and Empirical Lessons From the Prototypical Job Training Program and 2) Incentives in Government Bureaucracies: Can Incentives in Bureaucracies Emulate Market Efficiency? His 1995 Harris Lectures at Harvard, The Economic Approach To Social Program Evaluation are currently under revision for publication by Harvard University Press. Professor Heckman's research combines both methodological and empirical interests in evaluating the impact of a variety of social programs on the economy and on the society at large. He has written on various topics including: The impact of civil rights and affirmative action programs in the U.S., the impact of taxes on labor supply and human capital accumulation, the impact of public and private job training on earnings and employment, the impact of unionism on labor markets in developing countries, the impact of skill certification programs, and on the impact of interventions over the life cycle on skill formation and wages and the economic returns to cognitive and noncognitive skills. Professor Heckman has received numerous honors for his research. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of the Sciences. He is Associate Editor of Econometric Reviews. Professor Heckman was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2000 for his development of micoeconometric theory and methods for analyzing selective samples.
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Research Interests Dr. Heckman's investigation into the outcomes of individuals who earn a high school equivalency degree or general educational development certificate (GED), found that men in their mid- to late- 20s who obtained GEDs in the 1980s are not much more economically successful than high school dropouts. He is currently completing a book exploring this research, which has sparked debate across the country on the merits of obtaining the GED certificate. Dr. Heckman is also finalizing a monograph that seeks to evaluate job-training programs using data from the Job Training Partnership Act, the federal job training program implemented in 1983. He has also examined evidence on the effectiveness of government training compared to private training, and assessed the merits of differing research methodologies. His current research explores the effectiveness of tax policy.
Recent Publications Heckman, J., Lochner, L., & Taber, C. (1998). Tax Policy and Human Capital Formation, American Economic Review, Vol. 88, no. 2. Heckman, J., & Cameron, S. (1998). Life Cycle Schooling and Educational Selectivity: Models and Choice, Journal of Political Economy. Vol. 106, no. 2. Heckman, J., & Vytlacil, E. (1998). Instrumental Variables Methods for the Correlated Random Coefficient Model: Estimating the average rate of return to schooling with the return is correlated with schooling, Journal of Human Resources, Fall. Heckman, J., Lochner, L., & Taber, C. (1998). Explaining Rising Wage Inequality: Explorations with a dynamic general equilibrium model of earnings, Review of Economic Dynamics, Vol. 1, No. 1. Heckman, J., Ichimura, H., Smith, J., & Todd, P. (1998). Characterizing selection bias using experimental data, Econometrica, September. Heckman, J. (1998). Detecting discrimination, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 12, No. 2. Heckman, J. (1998). What should be our human capital investment policy?, Fiscal Studies, Vol. 19, No. 2. Heckman, J., Lochner, L., & Taber, C. (1999). Human capital formation and general equilibrium treatment effects: a study of tax and tuition policy, Fiscal Studies, 20(1), 1-16. Heckman, J., & Smith, J. (1999). The pre-programme earnings dip and the determinants of participation in a social programme implications for simple programme evaluation strategies, Economic Journal, 109, 1-37. Heckman, J., & Vytlacil, E. (1999). Local instrumental variables and latent variable models for identifying an bounding treatment effects, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 96:4730-4734. Cawley, J., Heckman, J., & Vytlacil, E. (1999). Meritocracy in America: An examination of wages within and across occupations, Industrial Relations, 38(3), 250-296. Cawley, J., & Heckman, J. (1999). A note on policies to reward the value added by educators, Review of Economics and Statistics, November. Heckman, J. (2000). Causal parameters and policy analysis: A 20th century retrospective, Quarterly Journal of Economics. Heckman J, Vytlacil E. The Relationship Between Treatment Parameters within a Latent Variable Framework. Economic Letters, January 2000. Heckman J, Vytlacil E. Cognitive Ability and the Rising Wage Return to Education. Review of Economics and Statistics, 2001. Heckman J, Lyons T, Todd P. Understanding Black-White Wage Differentials 1960-1990. American Economic Review, May 2001. Heckman J. Heterogeneity, Diversity and Social Policy Evaluation. Economic Journal, 2001. Heckman J. Vytlacil E. The Role of Ability in Explaining the Level Of and the Change In the Returns to Schooling. Review of Economics and Statistics, 2001. Book ChaptersHeckman, J. (1998). Evaluating the Welfare State, in Strom, S. (ed.), Econometrics and Economic Theory in the 20th Century: The Ragnar Frisch Centennial, Econometric Society Monograph Series, Cambridge University Press. Heckman, J., & Cameron, S. (1998). Should college attendance be further subsidized to reduce rising wage inequality, Ed. By M. Kosters, AEI: Washington, DC. Cawley, J., Heckman, J., Lochner, L. & Vytlacil, E. (1998). Ability, Human Capital, and Wages, in Mayer, S., & Peterson, P. (eds.), Cognitive and Social Skills: Consequences and Trends, Brookings Institute: Washington, D.C. Heckman, J., LaLonde, R., & Smith, J. (1999). The economics and econometrics of active labor market programs, in Ashenfelter, O., & Cards, D. (eds.), Handbook of Labor Economics, North Holland. Heckman, J., Lochner, L., & Taber, C., (1999). General equilibrium cost benefit analysis of education and tax policies, in Ranis, G., & Raut, L. K. (eds.), Trade, Growth and Development: Essays in Honor of T. N. Srinivasan, Elseiver Science, B. V., Amsterdam. Cawley, J., Heckman, J., Lochner, L., & Vytlacil, E. (1999). Understanding the role of cognitive ability in accounting for the recent rise in the economic return to education, in Arrow, K., Bowles, S., & Durlauf, S. (eds.), Meritocracy and Economic Inequality. Princeton University Press: Princeton University. Heckman J, Vytlacil E. Econometric Evaluation of social Programs, in Heckman J and Leamer E (eds.) Handbook of Econometrics, Vol. 5. 2001. Heckman J, Todd P. Understanding the Contribution of Legislation, Social Activism, Markets and Choice to the Economic Progress of African Americans in the Twentieth Century, in Garth B, Woeste V (eds.) ABF Anthology, May 2001.
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