Peter Diamond facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Peter Diamond
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Diamond in 2010
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| Born |
Peter Arthur Diamond
April 29, 1940 New York City, New York, U.S.
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| Spouse(s) | Kate Myrick |
| Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of California, Berkeley University of Cambridge |
| Field | Political economics Welfare economics Behavioral economics |
| Doctoral advisor |
Robert Solow |
| Doctoral students |
Martin Hellwig David K. Levine Andrei Shleifer Emmanuel Saez Botond Kőszegi |
| Awards | Nemmers Prize in Economics (1994) Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2010) |
| Information at IDEAS / RePEc | |
Peter Arthur Diamond (born April 29, 1940) is an American economist. An economist is someone who studies how people and countries make choices about money and resources. Peter Diamond is well-known for his work on U.S. Social Security policy. Social Security is a government program that helps people who are retired or can't work.
In 2010, he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He shared this important award with two other economists, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A. Pissarides. Peter Diamond is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Contents
Early Life and Education
Peter Diamond was born in New York City. His grandparents came to the United States from different countries in Europe around the year 1900. His parents grew up in New York City and both finished high school.
Peter started school in the Bronx. Later, his family moved to Woodmere on Long Island. He graduated from Lawrence High School. He then went to Yale University and earned a degree in mathematics in 1960. After that, he studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his PhD from MIT in 1963.
Career Highlights
Peter Diamond started his teaching career at the University of California, Berkeley. He was an assistant professor there from 1963 to 1965. In 1966, he joined the faculty at MIT. He became a full professor at MIT in 1970.
He has held many important positions in the field of economics. He was president of the Econometric Society, which is a group for economists who use math in their studies. He also served as president of the American Economic Association. This is a large group for economists in America.
Work on Social Security
Peter Diamond has spent a lot of his career studying Social Security in the U.S. and similar programs in other countries. He has written many articles and books about how these programs work. He often suggests ways to make Social Security better. For example, he has suggested small increases in contributions. He also proposed adjusting for changes in how long people are expected to live.
He wrote a book about Social Security called Saving Social Security: A Balanced Approach. He wrote this book with Peter R. Orszag, who used to work for President Obama.
Federal Reserve Nomination
In 2010, President Barack Obama nominated Peter Diamond to join the Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve is like the central bank of the United States. It helps manage the country's money and economy.
However, his nomination faced some challenges. After a long process, Peter Diamond decided to withdraw his name in 2011. He wrote that the process was difficult due to political disagreements. He believed his knowledge of the job market would have been helpful to the Federal Reserve.
Nobel Prize in Economics
In October 2010, Peter Diamond received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He shared the prize with Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A. Pissarides. They won for their research on "markets with search frictions."
What does "search frictions" mean? Imagine you are looking for a job, or a company is looking for a worker. It takes time and effort to find the right match. This "friction" or difficulty in finding a match affects the economy. Their work helped us understand why there is always some unemployment, even when there are jobs available. It also explained how policies can help people find jobs more easily.
Other Achievements
Peter Diamond has advised many students who became successful economists. Two of his former students, Andrei Shleifer and Emmanuel Saez, won the John Bates Clark Medal. This award is given to the best American economist under the age of 40.
Peter Diamond married Kate (Priscilla Myrick) in 1966. They have two sons.
Important Economic Ideas
Peter Diamond has made big contributions to many areas of economics. These include how government debt works and how capital (money for investment) grows. He also studied how people share risk in financial markets. His work also covers how to tax people fairly and how people find jobs in the labor market.
Understanding Economic Growth
One of his early important ideas was about how economies grow over time. He looked at how new people are born and old people pass away. He showed that sometimes an economy might save too much. This can lead to a situation where the economy is not as efficient as it could be. In such cases, government debt could actually help the economy.
Production Efficiency
Peter Diamond also worked on ideas about how businesses should produce goods and services efficiently. He showed that under certain conditions, businesses should always produce things as efficiently as possible. This means there should be no taxes on things used to make other products. This idea helps governments decide how to set up their tax systems.
How People Find Jobs
His Nobel Prize-winning work focused on how people search for jobs and how companies search for workers. He created models that explain why there is always some unemployment. Even when there are jobs available, it takes time for people and jobs to find each other. This helps us understand the job market better.
See also
In Spanish: Peter Diamond para niños
- List of Jewish Nobel laureates
