Edward Glaeser
Encyclopedia
Edward Ludwig "Ed" Glaeser (born May 1, 1967) is an economist at Harvard University. He was educated at The Collegiate School
in New York City
before obtaining his B.A. in economics from Princeton University
and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago
. Glaeser joined the faculty of Harvard in 1992, where he is currently the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor at the Department of Economics, the Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and the Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston
(both at the Kennedy School of Government). He is also an editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics
. Glaeser's connections with both Chicago and Harvard make him a linkage between the Chicago School
and the Cambridge School of Economics. Glaeser and John A. List
were prominent names mentioned as reasons why the AEA committee began to award the Clark Medal annually in 2009.
He is the author of the book Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier, published by Penguin Press in 2011. According to a review in the New York Times, the book summarizes Glaeser's years of research into the role that cities play in fostering human achievement and "is at once polymathic and vibrant."
, New York
to Ludwig Glaeser (Born: 1930; Died: September 27, 2006) and Elizabeth Glaeser. His father was born in Berlin in 1930, lived in Berlin
during World War II
and moved to West Berlin
in the 1950s. Ludwig received a degree in architecture from the Darmstadt University of Technology
and a Ph.D. in art history from the Free University of Berlin
before joining the staff at the Museum of Modern Art
in New York City in 1963. He would go to be curator of the Department of Architecture and Design in 1969.
Edward said, about his father, "His passion for cities and buildings nurtured my own". Edward described how his father supported new construction and change if it met aesthetic standards. According to Edward, Ludwig also "disliked dreary postwar apartment buildings and detested ugly suburban communities," but Edward, himself found much to admire in sprawl in so far as it facilitates "the ability of people to live as they choose." Yet Glaeser's work also argues against local anti-density zoning laws and federal government policies that encourage sprawl, such as the mortgage tax deduction and federal highway programs.
Glaeser's career was also reportedly influenced by his mother, Elizabeth Glaeser, who worked at Mobil Corporation as head of Capital Markets for 20 years before joining Deloitte & Touche as Director of the Corporate Risk Practice. She earned an M.B.A. degree when Edward was ten years old and occasionally brought him to her classes. He fondly remembers her teaching him micro-economics lessons, such as marginal cost
price theory.
. In particular, his work examining the historical evolution of economic hubs like Boston
and New York City
has had major influence on both economics and urban geography. Glaeser also has written widely on a variety of other topics, ranging from social economics to the economics of religion, from both contemporary and historical perspectives.
His work has earned the admiration of a number of prominent economists. George Akerlof
(2001 Economics Nobel Prize) praised Glaeser as a "genius," and Gary Becker
(1992 Economics Nobel Prize) commented that before Glaeser "urban economics was dried up. No one had come up with some new ways to look at cities."
Despite the seeming disparateness of the topics he has examined, most of Glaeser's work can be said to apply economic theory (and especially price theory and game theory
) to explain human economic and social behavior. Glaeser develops models using these tools and then evaluates them with real world data, so as to verify their applicability. A number of his most influential papers in applied economics are co-written with his Harvard colleague, Andrei Shleifer
.
In early work, he found that over decades, industrial diversity contributes more to economic growth than specialization, which contrasts with work by other urban economists like Vernon Henderson of Brown University
.
He has published influential studies on inequality. His work with David Cutler
of Harvard identified harmful effects of segregation on black youth in terms of wages, joblessness, education attainment, and likelihood of teen pregnancy. They found that the effect of segregation was so harmful to blacks that if black youth lived in perfectly integrated metropolitan areas, their success would be no different from white youth on three of four measures and only slightly different on the fourth. In a book with fellow Harvard economist Alberto Alesina
, he argues that policies to reduce inequality and poverty are less common in the United States
than in Europe
because of racial and economic diversity in the United States undermines sympathy for strangers.
He has also made important contributions in the field of social capital by identifying underlying economic incentives for social association and volunteering. For example, he and colleague Denise DiPasquale found that homeowners are more engaged citizens than renters. In experimental work, he found that students reporting being more trusting also act in more trustworthy ways.
In recent years, Glaeser has argued that human capital explains much of the variation in urban and metropolitan level prosperity." He has extended the argument to the international level, arguing that the high levels of human capital, embodied by European settlers in the New World
and elsewhere, explains the development of freer institutions and economic growth in those countries over centuries. In other work, he finds that human capital is associated with reductions in corruption and other improvements in government performance.
During the 2000s, Glaeser's empirical research has offered a distinctive explanation for the increase in housing prices in many parts of the United States over the past several decades. Unlike many pundits and commentators, who attribute skyrocketing housing prices to a housing bubble created by Alan Greenspan
's monetary policies, Glaeser points out that the increase in housing prices has not been uniform throughout the country.
In fact, the most dramatic increases have occurred in places like Boston
, Massachusetts
and San Francisco, California
, where permits for new buildings have been difficult to obtain since the 1970s. Compounded with strict zoning laws, that seriously disrupted the supply of new housing in these cities. Real estate markets were thus unable to accommodate increases in demand, and housing prices skyrocketed. Glaeser also points to the experience of states such as Arizona
and Texas
, which experienced tremendous growth in demand for real estate during the same period but, thanks to looser regulations and the comparative ease of obtaining new building permits, did not witness abnormal increases in housing prices.
and Jesse Shapiro
on a research paper that attempted to explain why Americans had become more obese. According to the abstract of their paper, "Why Have Americans Become More Obese?", Americans have become more obese over the past 25 years because they "have been consuming more calories. The increase in food consumption is itself the result of technological innovations which made it possible for food to be mass prepared far from the point of consumption, and consumed with lower time costs of preparation and cleaning. Price changes are normally beneficial, but may not be if people have self-control problems."http://www.nber.org/papers/w9446
. He writes a monthly column for the Boston Globe. He blogs frequently for the New York Times at Economix, and he has written essays for The New Republic
.
The Collegiate School
Collegiate School is an independent school for boys in New York City and is one of the oldest schools in the United States. It is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and is a member of both the New York Interschool and the Ivy Preparatory School League.-History:Collegiate was founded in the...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
before obtaining his B.A. in economics from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. Glaeser joined the faculty of Harvard in 1992, where he is currently the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor at the Department of Economics, the Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and the Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston
Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston
The Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston is a research and policy center housed at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts...
(both at the Kennedy School of Government). He is also an editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics
Quarterly Journal of Economics
The Quarterly Journal of Economics, or QJE, is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Oxford University Press and edited at Harvard University's Department of Economics. Its current editors are Robert J. Barro, Elhanan Helpman and Lawrence F. Katz...
. Glaeser's connections with both Chicago and Harvard make him a linkage between the Chicago School
Chicago school (economics)
The Chicago school of economics describes a neoclassical school of thought within the academic community of economists, with a strong focus around the faculty of The University of Chicago, some of whom have constructed and popularized its principles...
and the Cambridge School of Economics. Glaeser and John A. List
John A. List
John August List is The Homer J. Livingston Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago. He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, and his Ph.D. from the University of Wyoming in 1996...
were prominent names mentioned as reasons why the AEA committee began to award the Clark Medal annually in 2009.
He is the author of the book Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier, published by Penguin Press in 2011. According to a review in the New York Times, the book summarizes Glaeser's years of research into the role that cities play in fostering human achievement and "is at once polymathic and vibrant."
Family background and influence
Glaeser was born in ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to Ludwig Glaeser (Born: 1930; Died: September 27, 2006) and Elizabeth Glaeser. His father was born in Berlin in 1930, lived in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and moved to West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
in the 1950s. Ludwig received a degree in architecture from the Darmstadt University of Technology
Darmstadt University of Technology
The Technische Universität Darmstadt, abbreviated TU Darmstadt, is a university in the city of Darmstadt, Germany...
and a Ph.D. in art history from the Free University of Berlin
Free University of Berlin
Freie Universität Berlin is one of the leading and most prestigious research universities in Germany and continental Europe. It distinguishes itself through its modern and international character. It is the largest of the four universities in Berlin. Research at the university is focused on the...
before joining the staff at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York City in 1963. He would go to be curator of the Department of Architecture and Design in 1969.
Edward said, about his father, "His passion for cities and buildings nurtured my own". Edward described how his father supported new construction and change if it met aesthetic standards. According to Edward, Ludwig also "disliked dreary postwar apartment buildings and detested ugly suburban communities," but Edward, himself found much to admire in sprawl in so far as it facilitates "the ability of people to live as they choose." Yet Glaeser's work also argues against local anti-density zoning laws and federal government policies that encourage sprawl, such as the mortgage tax deduction and federal highway programs.
Glaeser's career was also reportedly influenced by his mother, Elizabeth Glaeser, who worked at Mobil Corporation as head of Capital Markets for 20 years before joining Deloitte & Touche as Director of the Corporate Risk Practice. She earned an M.B.A. degree when Edward was ten years old and occasionally brought him to her classes. He fondly remembers her teaching him micro-economics lessons, such as marginal cost
Marginal cost
In economics and finance, marginal cost is the change in total cost that arises when the quantity produced changes by one unit. That is, it is the cost of producing one more unit of a good...
price theory.
Jack of all trades
Glaeser has published at a rate of almost five articles per year since 1992 in leading peer-reviewed academic economics journals, in addition to many books, other articles, blogs, and op-eds.http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/glaeser/cv/ELG%20CV%20Updated%206.17.09.pdf Glaeser has made substantial contributions to the empirical study of urban economicsUrban economics
Urban economics is broadly the economic study of urban areas; as such, it involves using the tools of economics to analyze urban issues such as crime, education, public transit, housing, and local government finance...
. In particular, his work examining the historical evolution of economic hubs like Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
has had major influence on both economics and urban geography. Glaeser also has written widely on a variety of other topics, ranging from social economics to the economics of religion, from both contemporary and historical perspectives.
His work has earned the admiration of a number of prominent economists. George Akerlof
George Akerlof
George Arthur Akerlof is an American economist and Koshland Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics George Arthur Akerlof (born June 17, 1940) is an American economist and Koshland Professor of Economics at the University of...
(2001 Economics Nobel Prize) praised Glaeser as a "genius," and Gary Becker
Gary Becker
Gary Stanley Becker is an American economist. He is a professor of economics, sociology at the University of Chicago and a professor at the Booth School of Business. He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1992, and received the United States' Presidential Medal of Freedom...
(1992 Economics Nobel Prize) commented that before Glaeser "urban economics was dried up. No one had come up with some new ways to look at cities."
Despite the seeming disparateness of the topics he has examined, most of Glaeser's work can be said to apply economic theory (and especially price theory and game theory
Game theory
Game theory is a mathematical method for analyzing calculated circumstances, such as in games, where a person’s success is based upon the choices of others...
) to explain human economic and social behavior. Glaeser develops models using these tools and then evaluates them with real world data, so as to verify their applicability. A number of his most influential papers in applied economics are co-written with his Harvard colleague, Andrei Shleifer
Andrei Shleifer
Andrei Shleifer is a Russian American economist. From its inauguration in 1992 until it was shut down in 1997, Shleifer served as project director of the Harvard Institute for International Developments Russian aid project...
.
Contribution to urban economics and political economy
Glaeser has published in leading economic journals on many topics in the field of urban economics.In early work, he found that over decades, industrial diversity contributes more to economic growth than specialization, which contrasts with work by other urban economists like Vernon Henderson of Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
.
He has published influential studies on inequality. His work with David Cutler
David Cutler
David Matthew Cutler is Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard University. He holds a joint appointment in the economics department and in Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard School of Public Health. He graduated from Harvard College, summa cum laude, with a...
of Harvard identified harmful effects of segregation on black youth in terms of wages, joblessness, education attainment, and likelihood of teen pregnancy. They found that the effect of segregation was so harmful to blacks that if black youth lived in perfectly integrated metropolitan areas, their success would be no different from white youth on three of four measures and only slightly different on the fourth. In a book with fellow Harvard economist Alberto Alesina
Alberto Alesina
Alberto Francesco Alesina is an Italian political economist. He has published much-cited books and articles in major economics journals.-Background and professional life:...
, he argues that policies to reduce inequality and poverty are less common in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
than in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
because of racial and economic diversity in the United States undermines sympathy for strangers.
He has also made important contributions in the field of social capital by identifying underlying economic incentives for social association and volunteering. For example, he and colleague Denise DiPasquale found that homeowners are more engaged citizens than renters. In experimental work, he found that students reporting being more trusting also act in more trustworthy ways.
In recent years, Glaeser has argued that human capital explains much of the variation in urban and metropolitan level prosperity." He has extended the argument to the international level, arguing that the high levels of human capital, embodied by European settlers in the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
and elsewhere, explains the development of freer institutions and economic growth in those countries over centuries. In other work, he finds that human capital is associated with reductions in corruption and other improvements in government performance.
During the 2000s, Glaeser's empirical research has offered a distinctive explanation for the increase in housing prices in many parts of the United States over the past several decades. Unlike many pundits and commentators, who attribute skyrocketing housing prices to a housing bubble created by Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspan is an American economist who served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006. He currently works as a private advisor and provides consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC...
's monetary policies, Glaeser points out that the increase in housing prices has not been uniform throughout the country.
In fact, the most dramatic increases have occurred in places like Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
and San Francisco, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, where permits for new buildings have been difficult to obtain since the 1970s. Compounded with strict zoning laws, that seriously disrupted the supply of new housing in these cities. Real estate markets were thus unable to accommodate increases in demand, and housing prices skyrocketed. Glaeser also points to the experience of states such as Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
and Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, which experienced tremendous growth in demand for real estate during the same period but, thanks to looser regulations and the comparative ease of obtaining new building permits, did not witness abnormal increases in housing prices.
Contribution to health economics
In 2003, Glaeser collaborated with David CutlerDavid Cutler
David Matthew Cutler is Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard University. He holds a joint appointment in the economics department and in Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard School of Public Health. He graduated from Harvard College, summa cum laude, with a...
and Jesse Shapiro
Jesse Shapiro
Jesse M. Shapiro is an American economist, He is currently a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.Shapiro has published a number of working papers in the area of industrial organization, political economy and behavioral economics...
on a research paper that attempted to explain why Americans had become more obese. According to the abstract of their paper, "Why Have Americans Become More Obese?", Americans have become more obese over the past 25 years because they "have been consuming more calories. The increase in food consumption is itself the result of technological innovations which made it possible for food to be mass prepared far from the point of consumption, and consumed with lower time costs of preparation and cleaning. Price changes are normally beneficial, but may not be if people have self-control problems."http://www.nber.org/papers/w9446
Undergraduate teaching
At Harvard, Glaeser regularly teaches an undergraduate course on intermediate micro-economic theory.Popular writings
In 2006, Glaeser began writing a regular column for the New York SunNew York Sun
The New York Sun was a weekday daily newspaper published in New York City from 2002 to 2008. When it debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of an otherwise unrelated earlier New York paper, The Sun , it became the first general-interest broadsheet newspaper to be started...
. He writes a monthly column for the Boston Globe. He blogs frequently for the New York Times at Economix, and he has written essays for The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
.
External links
- Glaeser on the differences between U.S and European welfare policies
- Glaeser's homepage at the Harvard department of economics
- Podcast featuring Glaeser Glaeser discusses paternalism on EconTalkEconTalkEconTalk is a weekly podcast hosted by professor Russell Roberts at George Mason University. Roberts interviews guests—often professional economists—on topics in economics....
.