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Jacob Mincer (July 15, 1922 – August 20, 2006), was a father of modern labor economics. He was Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Economics and Social Relations at Columbia University for most of his active life.


Biography

Born in
Tomaszów Lubelski Tomaszów Lubelski is a town in south-eastern Poland with 19,365 inhabitants (2017). Situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, near Roztocze National Park, it is the capital of Tomaszów Lubelski County. History The town was founded at the end of the ...
, Poland, Mincer survived World War II prison camps in Czechoslovakia and Germany]as a teenager. After graduating from
Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of h ...
in 1950, Mincer received his PhD from Columbia University in 1957. Following teaching stints at
City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...
, Hebrew University,
Stockholm School of Economics The Stockholm School of Economics (SSE; sv, Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, HHS) is a private business school located in city district Vasastaden in the central part of Stockholm, Sweden. SSE offers BSc, MSc and MBA programs, along with Ph ...
and the University of Chicago, Mincer joined Columbia's faculty in 1959. He stayed at Columbia until his retirement in 1991. Mincer was also a member of the
National Bureau of Economic Research The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...
from 1960 through his death. Mincer died at his Manhattan home on August 20, 2006, due to complications from Parkinson's disease, according to his wife, Dr. Flora Mincer, and his daughters, Deborah Mincer (Sussman) and Carolyn Mincer.


Contributions to economic science

Mincer was considered by many to be a father of modern labor economics.Shoshana Grossbard (ed.), Jacob Mincer, A Pioneer of Modern Labor Economics. New York: Springer, 2006. As a leading member of a group of economists known as the
Chicago School of Economics The Chicago school of economics is a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago, some of whom have constructed and popularized its principles. Milton Friedman and George Stigl ...
, Mincer and Nobel Laureate
Gary Becker Gary Stanley Becker (; December 2, 1930 – May 3, 2014) was an American economist who received the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, and was a leader of ...
helped to develop the empirical foundations of
human capital Human capital is a concept used by social scientists to designate personal attributes considered useful in the production process. It encompasses employee knowledge, skills, know-how, good health, and education. Human capital has a substantial ...
theory, consequently revolutionizing the field of labor economics. During his academic career, Mincer authored four books and hundreds of journal articles, papers and essays. Mincer's ground-breaking work: ''Schooling, Experience and Earnings'', published in 1974, used data from the 1950 and 1960 Censuses to relate income distribution in America to the varying amounts of education and on-the-job training among workers. "He calculated, for example, that annual earnings rose by 5 to 10 percent in the 1950s and 1960s for every year of additional schooling. There was a similar, although smaller, return on investment in job training—and age played a role." Mincer's work continues to have a profound impact on the field of labor economics. Papers in the field frequently use
Mincerian equations The Mincer earnings function is a single-equation model that explains wage income as a function of schooling and experience. It is named after Jacob Mincer. Thomas Lemieux argues it is "one of the most widely used models in empirical economics". Th ...
, which model wages as a function of human capital in statistical estimation. And as a result of Mincer's pioneering work, variables such as schooling and work experience are now the most commonly used measures of human capital.


Awards and prizes

In 1967 Mincer was elected as a
Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The number of new fellows per year is limited ...
.View/Search Fellows of the ASA
accessed 2016-08-20. In 1991, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Chicago which recognized his seminal work in the economic analysis of earnings and
inequality Inequality may refer to: Economics * Attention inequality, unequal distribution of attention across users, groups of people, issues in etc. in attention economy * Economic inequality, difference in economic well-being between population groups * ...
, the
labor force The workforce or labour force is a concept referring to the pool of human beings either in employment or in unemployment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic regi ...
decisions of women and of job mobility. The citation for the degree also recognized Mincer's work in this area that has helped guide a generation of economists who study these important social questions. In recognition of his lifetime achievements in economics, Mincer was awarded the first
IZA Prize in Labor Economics The Institute for the Study of Labor awards a prize each year (from 2016 on every two years in turn with the IZA Young Labor Economist Award) for outstanding academic achievement in the field of labor economics. The IZA Prize in Labor Economics has ...
of the
Institute for the Study of Labor The IZA - Institute of Labor Economics (german: Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit), until 2016 referred to as the Institute of the Study of Labor (IZA), is a private, independent economic research institute and academic network focused o ...
(
Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr ...
, Germany). The $50,000 prize was presented to Mincer by more than 100 of his former students and colleagues at a conference at Columbia University in 2002. In 2004 Mincer received a Career Achievement Award from the Society of Labor Economists; the annual award has subsequently become known as the Mincer Award. Mincer was never awarded a Nobel Prize, though he was considered one of the world's greatest economists of the 20th century, and was nominated for the award numerous times by admiring colleagues.


Quotes regarding Mincer


Selected bibliography

;Book chapters * ::''Reprinted as'': * ;Journal articles *


Notes


External links

* IZA (
Institute for the Study of Labor The IZA - Institute of Labor Economics (german: Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit), until 2016 referred to as the Institute of the Study of Labor (IZA), is a private, independent economic research institute and academic network focused o ...
) Prize in Labor Economic

* University of Chicago's Society of Labor Economists Mincer Awar

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mincer, Jacob 1922 births 2006 deaths Columbia University alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences American people of Polish-Jewish descent 20th-century American economists Labor economists Columbia University faculty Fellows of the Econometric Society Fellows of the American Statistical Association Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association Polish emigrants to the United States