Jennifer Hunt is a professor of economics at
Rutgers University
Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...
.
She previously served as deputy assistant secretary for microeconomic analysis at the
U.S. Department of the Treasury
The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current U.S. government departments.
The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and ...
after serving a term as
Chief Economist Chief economist is a single-position job class having primary responsibility for the development, coordination, and production of economic and financial analysis. It is distinguished from the other economist positions by the broader scope of respons ...
to the
U.S. Secretary of Labor, serving under acting secretary
Seth Harris
Seth D. Harris (born October 12, 1962) is an American attorney, academic, and former government official. Harris served under President Barack Obama as the 11th United States Deputy Secretary of Labor from 2009 to 2014. Nominated in February 2009 ...
and Secretary
Thomas Perez
Thomas Edward Perez (born October 7, 1961) is an American politician and attorney who served as the senior advisor to the United States president Joe Biden and the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs from 2023 to 2025 ...
.
She is a research associate at 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 co ...
.
She has done research in the areas of employment and unemployment policy, immigration, wage inequality, transition economics, crime and corruption.
Her past research focused on immigration and innovation in the United States, the U.S. science and engineering workforce, and the 2008-2009 recession in Germany. Her research on immigration has been cited by media in the context of
immigration reform legislation, currently under consideration by the
U.S. Congress
The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both ...
.
Her contemporary research focuses primarily on the geographic composition of technology, discrimination, and unemployment.
Education
Jennifer Hunt graduated from the
International School of Geneva
The International School of Geneva (in French: ''École internationale de Genève''), commonly known as Ecolint, is a private, non-profit international school based in Geneva, Switzerland.
Background
Founded in 1924 in the service of the Leagu ...
with an
International Baccalaureate
The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), more commonly known as the International Baccalaureate (IB), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the I ...
degree in 1983. She then studied
electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
, earning a
Scientiæ Baccalaureus
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...
in 1987. She then switched fields and studied
economics
Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
, earning her
Ph.D in 1992.
Academic appointments
Jennifer Hunt began her academic career as an assistant professor at
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
in 1992, becoming an associate professor in 1997. She moved to the
University of Montreal
A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...
in 2001 and
McGill University
McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...
in 2004. She has been a professor at Rutgers since 2011.
Professor Hunt has also held the following visiting positions:
*
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
The Autonomous University of Barcelona (; Spanish: ; ; UAB) is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain.
, the university consists of 57 departments in the experimental, lif ...
, Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica, July 2012
*
University of Milan
The University of Milan (; ), officially abbreviated as UNIMI, or colloquially referred to as La Statale ("the State niversity), is a public university, public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Eu ...
, Centro Studi Luco d'Agliano, June 2010
*
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...
, Department of Economics, 2008-2009
*
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
, Department of Economics, Spring 2006
*
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...
, Department of Economics, Spring 2000
*
German Institute for Economic Research
The German Institute for Economic Research (), or, more commonly DIWBerlin, is a economic research institute in Germany, involved in economic research and policy advice. According to Repec, it is among the top-10 percent of non-profit economic ...
(DIW-Berlin), SOEP Group, Fall 1999
*
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
, Hoover Institution, National Fellow, 1995-1996
Hunt is a research associate in labor studies at 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 co ...
,
a research fellow at the
Centre for Economic Policy Research
The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) is an independent, non-partisan, pan-European non-profit organisation. It aims to enhance the quality of policy decisions through providing policy-relevant research, based soundly in economic schola ...
in London,
and is on the Scientific Advisory Council of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies
in Washington D.C. and the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung in Nuremberg.
Since 2012, Hunt has served as an associate editor of the ''
Journal of Labor Economics
The ''Journal of Labor Economics'' is an academic journal published quarterly by the University of Chicago Press on international research examining issues affecting the economy as well as social and private behavior. It covers various aspects of l ...
''.
She is also an Editor of the ''
Journal of Comparative Economics
The ''Journal of Comparative Economics'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Elsevier on behalf of the Association for Comparative Economic Studies. It was established in 1977 and the editors-in-chief are Ruben Enikolopov ( ...
''.
Research awards
Hunt's paper, "How Much Does Immigration Boost Innovation?" (with coauthor Marjolaine Gauthier-Loiselle) won the
American Economic Journal
The ''American Economic Journal'' is a group of four peer-reviewed academic journals published by the American Economic Association. The names of the individual journals consist of the prefix ''American Economic Journal'' with a descriptor of the ...
Best Paper in Macroeconomics Prize in 2013.
Hunt was honored in 2012 as the keynote speaker at
Verein für Socialpolitik
The (; literally: Association for Social Policy), or the German Economic Association, is a society of economists in the German language, German-speaking area.
History
The was founded in Eisenach in 1872 as a response to the "social question ...
annual conference, Göttingen. She was also keynote speaker at INSIDE third annual immigration conference, Barcelona, 2009, and Innis Lecturer at the Canadian Economics Association Meetings, 2004. In 2001 she received the DAAD Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in German Studies,
and she was awarded "Best Paper Using the German Socio-Economic Panel 1984-99, scholar under 35," in 2000.
Selected publications
*
*
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunt, Jennifer
21st-century American economists
American women economists
Living people
Harvard University alumni
MIT School of Engineering alumni
International School of Geneva alumni
Chief Economists of the United States Department of Labor
1965 births
Obama administration personnel
21st-century American women civil servants