David Card facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
David Card
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Card in 2021
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| Born | 1956 (age 68–69) Guelph, Ontario, Canada
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| Institutions | |
| Field | Labour economics |
| Doctoral advisor |
Orley Ashenfelter |
| Doctoral students |
Thomas Lemieux Phillip B. Levine Christoph M. Schmidt Michael Greenstone Jesse Rothstein Philip Oreopoulos David Lee Janet Currie Enrico Moretti Heather Royer Elizabeth Cascio Ethan G. Lewis Nicole Maestas |
| Awards | John Bates Clark Medal (1995) IZA Labor Economics Award (2006) Frisch Medal (2008) BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2014) Jacob Mincer Award (2019) Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2021) |
| Information at IDEAS / RePEc | |
David Edward Card (born 1956) is a Canadian-American labour economist. He is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley.
In 2021, he won half of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He received this award for his important studies on how people get jobs and how much they earn. The other half of the prize went to Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens.
Contents
Early life and education
David Card was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, in 1956. His parents were dairy farmers. He went to John F. Ross Collegiate Vocational Institute from 1970 to 1975.
Card first studied physics in college. Later, he changed his mind and decided to study economics. He earned his first degree from Queen's University in 1978. Then, he got his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University in 1983. His Ph.D. paper was about how wages are set in long-term work agreements.
Career in economics
Card started his teaching career at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He was an assistant professor there for two years. From 1983 to 1997, he taught at Princeton University. After that, he moved to Berkeley.
He also worked as a visiting professor at Columbia University for a year. Card helped edit important economics journals. These included the Journal of Labor Economics, Econometrica, and The American Economic Review.
Important studies
In the early 1990s, David Card became well-known for his research with Alan B. Krueger. They studied the minimum wage in New Jersey. Many economists believed that raising the minimum wage would cause businesses to hire fewer people. But Card and Krueger found that this was not always true. Their study showed that a minimum wage increase did not lead to fewer jobs at fast food restaurants in New Jersey.
Their way of studying this, called "difference in differences", was new. It compared changes in one place to changes in another. While some people questioned their first study, many later studies have agreed with their findings. Today, many economists, like Joseph E. Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, accept these ideas.
Card has also studied other important topics. These include immigration, education, job training, and how income differences happen. He often compares situations in the United States and Canada.
Immigration research
Card's research on immigration suggests that new immigrants have a very small effect on the economy. He found that immigrants often fit into society quickly. They usually do not lower wages for people already living in the country.
For example, Card studied the Mariel boatlift. This was when many Cuban immigrants arrived in Miami, Florida, in 1980. He compared Miami's economy to other cities that did not receive as many immigrants. Even though Miami's low-skilled workforce grew by 7%, wages for those workers did not change much. The overall unemployment rate and wages in Miami also stayed the same.
Card believes that the economic reasons against immigration are not very strong. He thinks they are "almost irrelevant." However, this does not mean he thinks immigration should always increase. He just means immigrants usually do not harm the job market.
Even though his work touches on political topics, Card himself does not usually share his political opinions. He also does not suggest specific government policies. But his research is often used by others to support ideas like raising the minimum wage or allowing more immigration. He also served as an expert witness for Harvard in a court case about college admissions.
"Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of Minimum Wage"
David Card and Alan B. Krueger wrote a book called "Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of Minimum Wage."
What the book was about
The book challenged a common idea that raising the minimum wage would lead to fewer jobs. Most economists at the time believed this. Card and Krueger wanted to use "natural experiments" to study this. Natural experiments are like real-life situations that happen on their own. They provide strong evidence about how things work.
The authors also wanted to show that economics could be studied more like a science. They believed in using real-world data and careful research to test economic ideas.
Main ideas and impact
"Myth and Measurement" had two main findings. First, raising the minimum wage does not always cause job losses. The book showed many examples where minimum wage increases did not lead to fewer jobs. In fact, sometimes employment even went up or stayed the same.
Second, the book suggested that the usual economic models might not fully explain the low-wage job market. It pointed out things like workers with different skills getting the same pay. It also noted that minimum wage jobs sometimes attract more applicants. These things did not fit the old economic ideas.
Card and Krueger suggested new models that are more flexible. These models would better explain how wages are set for low-wage workers.
Card said the book had two big impacts: on policy and on economic research. For policy, he felt people focused too much on how minimum wage affects jobs. He thought the real focus should be on how minimum wage helps reduce income inequality.
For research, he believed the book showed the importance of using real-world data from businesses. This kind of data helps researchers understand wages better. He stressed that careful research is key to understanding the low-wage job market.
Awards and recognition
In 1995, David Card received the John Bates Clark Medal. This award is given to a top American economist under 40. He won it for his work on the minimum wage and the economic effects of the Mariel boatlift.
In 2009, he gave an important lecture at the American Economic Association meeting. In 2011, a survey of economics professors named him one of their favorite living economists under 60. He also became a vice president of the American Economic Association in 2014.
In 2014, he and Richard Blundell won the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award. They received it for their "contributions to empirical microeconomics." This means they used real-world data to study small parts of the economy. The award committee praised their careful research and how they reported their findings.
Card was chosen to be a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2021. Later that year, he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He received the Nobel Prize for his studies showing that raising the minimum wage does not always lead to fewer jobs. He also showed that immigrants do not necessarily lower pay for workers born in the country.
Images for kids
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Card in 2021
See also
In Spanish: David Card para niños
