Robert Shimer (born August 21, 1968) is an American
macroeconomist and
labor economist who currently holds the George J. Stigler Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
. From 2018 through 2024 he served two terms at the Chair of the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics. He was an editor of the ''
Journal of Political Economy
The ''Journal of Political Economy'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. Established by James Laurence Laughlin in 1892, it covers both theoretical and empirical economics. In the past, the ...
'' from 2004 to 2012. His research focuses on the
search and matching approach to labor economics. He is especially known for arguing that the standard
labor market matching model predicts fluctuations in the unemployment rate much smaller than those actually observed over the business cycle, an observation which has sometimes been called the Shimer puzzle. His book ''Labor Markets and Business Cycles'' was published in 2010 by Princeton University Press, and was recommended by
Robert Hall:
:Shimer's definitive account of the modern theory of labor market volatility presents many new results and deserves a prominent place on the bookshelf of every macroeconomist and labor economist.
Publication
*
Research
Labor Choice
In 2017, Shimer coauthored a paper entitled, "High Wage Workers Work for High Wage Firms."
The working paper sought to measure the correlation between worker quality and firm wage rates. Using Austrian administrative data, he found a correlation between worker and firm types of 0.4 to 0.6. This implies a contradiction to previous work which found no correlation between types.
External links
Robert Shimer's homepage*
*
1968 births
Living people
American labor economists
American macroeconomists
20th-century American economists
21st-century American economists
Fellows of the Econometric Society
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Yale University alumni
Alumni of the University of Oxford
Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni
Princeton University faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Journal of Political Economy editors
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