Faculty
Biography
James J. Heckman, PhD, is the USC Presidential Scholar-in-Residence at the USC Schaeffer Center. He is also the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he has served since 1973.
In 2000, Heckman won the Nobel Prize in Economics for contributions to the field of policy analysis (the study of selection bias and the evaluation of social programs).
He directs the Center for the Economics of Human Development, the Economics Research Center and the Center for Social Program Evaluation at the Harris School for Public Policy, and the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group at the University of Chicago. Heckman also is a senior research fellow at the American Bar Foundation. He has a long history of interdisciplinary research pursuing a new synthesis of human development over the life course by broadening the boundaries of economic analysis to incorporate perspectives and methodologies from psychology, primatology, child development and statisticians to create new tools to measure capabilities and outcomes.
His recent work investigates the role of early life environments on success later in life.