Athey, Susan

▪ 2008

Susan Carleton Athey 

born Nov. 29, 1970, Boston, Mass.

 On April 20, 2007, Susan Athey of Harvard University became the first woman to win the John Bates Clark (JBC) medal, the American Economic Association award granted biennially to the best economist under the age of 40 working in the U.S. The citation noted Athey's contribution to economic theory, empirical economics, and econometrics. In particular it recognized her research programs for their strong focus on the use of theory to understand economic problems in industrial organizations. The tools that Athey developed enabled the development of “more robust empirical results.” In the academic world, economists were not surprised by the award decision. Athey's reputation was already well established in several fields of economic theory, including applied economics, macroeconomics, and econometrics. When she completed her Ph.D. at age 24, a New York Times headline described her as “The Top Draft Pick in Economics: A Professor-to-Be Coveted by Two Dozen Universities.”

      Athey studied economics, mathematics, and computer science at Duke University, Durham, N.C. (B.A., 1991), and economics at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business (Ph.D., 1995). She joined the economics faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she later held (1997–2001) the Castle Krob Career Development Chair. She returned to the Stanford Graduate School of Business as an associate professor of economics (2001–04) and then held the Holbrook Working Chair (2004–06). In 2006 Athey and her husband, econometrician Guido Imbens, accepted a joint offer from Harvard, where she worked as a professor of economics while rearing two young children.

      Although Athey's work was extremely theoretical and complex, among other things it enabled economists to test their own predictions about how firms would behave in uncertain circumstances. Her “comparative statics” research into how economic variables alter when something in the environment changes identified the crucial economic assumptions on risk preferences and the nature of risk that allow a researcher to draw conclusions. Athey was affiliated with a firm that advised governments on auction design, and much of her research was focused in this area, in which individuals, firms, or governments actively specify and enforce the rules. From 1997 she was also associated with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

      Athey was a member of the Committee for the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, and her desire to raise the status of women in her field was evident in her selection of 16 female economists for the committee to organize the 2006 winter Econometric Society meetings. Her extensive editorial interests were reflected in involvement in many journals, including coeditorship of American Economic Journals: Microeconomics and associate editorships with Econometrica, Theoretical Economics, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Janet H. Clark

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▪ American economist

in full  Susan Carleton Athey 

born Nov. 29, 1970, Boston, Mass., U.S.

 

 American economist who, in 2007, became the first woman to win the John Bates Clark (JBC) medal, the American Economic Association award granted biennially to the best economist under age 40 working in the United States. The citation noted Athey's contribution to economic theory, empirical economics, and econometrics.

      Athey studied economics, mathematics, and computer science at Duke University, Durham, N.C. (B.A., 1991), and economics at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business (Ph.D., 1995). She joined the economics faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she later held (1997–2001) the Castle Krob Career Development Chair. She returned to the Stanford Graduate School of Business as an associate professor of economics (2001–04) and then held the Holbrook Working Chair (2004–06). In 2006 Athey and her husband, econometrician Guido Imbens, accepted a joint offer from Harvard University, where Athey worked as a professor of economics.

      Although Athey's work was extremely theoretical and complex, among other things it enabled economists to test their own predictions about how firms would behave in uncertain circumstances. Her “comparative statics” research into how economic variables alter when something in the environment changes identified the crucial economic assumptions on risk preferences and the nature of risk that allow a researcher to draw conclusions. Athey was affiliated with a firm that advised governments on auction design, and much of her research was concentrated in this area, in which individuals, firms, or governments actively specify and enforce the rules. From 1997 she was also associated with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

      Athey was a member of the Committee for the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, and her desire to raise the status of women in her field was evident in her selection of 16 female economists for the committee to organize the 2006 winter Econometric Society meetings. Her extensive editorial interests were reflected in her involvement in many journals, including coeditorship of American Economic Journals: Microeconomics and associate editorships of Econometrica, Theoretical Economics, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

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