Orley AshenfelterNobel Conference 52

Joseph Douglas Green 1895 Professor of Economics and Director of the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University

Lecture: Comparing Real Wages around the World: Inequality in Human Wealth

Orley Ashenfelter studies cross-country measurements of wage rates, and the economic effects of schooling on labor markets. Ashenfelter is a labor economist who also works in the fields of econometrics and law and economics. While serving as the Director of the Office of Evaluation of the US Department of Labor, he developed the econometric evaluation of government retraining programs, which led to the systematization of methods for evaluating social programs. Professor Ashenfelter is also regarded as the originator of the use of so-called "natural experiments" to infer causality about economic relationships.

Ashenfelter earned his BA from Claremont McKenna College in 1964 and his PhD from Princeton University in 1970. He is the author of four books, and editor or co-editor of more than a dozen. He also has an interest in the economics of wine, and serves as co-editor of the Journal of Wine Economics. In 1976-77 he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship.

Here is a taste test of Dr. Ashenfelter’s lecture.