Joshua D. Angrist, Nobel Prize in Economics 2021

Joshua David Angrist (born September 18, 1960) is an Israeli American economist and Ford Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2021 Angrist was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, together with David Card and Guido Imbens. Angrist and Imbens shared one half of the prize "for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships."

He ranks among the world's top economists in labour economics, urban economics, and the economics of education, and is known for his use of quasi-experimental research designs (such as instrumental variables) to study the effects of public policies and changes in economic or social circumstances. He is a co-founder and co-director of the MIT's School Effectiveness & Inequality Initiative, which studies the relationship between human capital and income inequality in the U.S.

Born in Columbus, Ohio and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Angrist attended Oberlin College, where he received his B.A. in economics in 1982. He lived in Israel from 1982 until 1985. Angrist received a M.A. and a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University in, respectively, 1987 and 1989.

Angrist holds dual US-Israeli citizenship and lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Honours and awards

• Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
• Fellow of the Econometric Society.
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006).
• Honorary doctorate in Economics from the University of St. Gallen (2007).
• John von Neumann Award, by the Rajk László College for Advanced Studies in Budapest (2011).
• Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (2021).