Alan B. Krueger

Early life and education Krueger grew up in a Jewish family in Livingston, New Jersey, and graduated from Livingston High School in 1979.

Krueger received his B.S. from the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations (with honors), and he received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1985 and 1987, respectively.

Career Krueger began teaching at Princeton University in 1987. He held the Bendheim Professorship in Economics and Public Affairs followed by the James Madison Professorship in Political Economy.

Krueger developed and applied the method of natural experiments to study the effect of education on earnings, the minimum wage on employment, and other issues.

Krueger compared restaurant jobs in New Jersey, which raised its minimum wage, to restaurant jobs in Pennsylvania, which did not, and found that restaurant employment in New Jersey increased, while it decreased in Pennsylvania. The results reinvigorated the academic debate on the employment effects of minimum wages and spawned a large literature.

His books, Education Matters: Selected Essays by Alan B. Krueger and (with James Heckman) Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies? reviewed the available research relating to positive externalities accruing to society from increased government investment in educating the children of the poor. In Inequality in America, he writes:

In his book What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism (2007), Krueger wrote that, in contrast to the assumption that terrorists come from impoverished, uneducated environments, they often come from middle-class, college-educated backgrounds.

In 1994–95, he served as Chief Economist at the United States Department of Labor. He received the Kershaw Prize, Mahalanobis Prize, and IZA Prize (with David Card), and was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Society of Labor Economists, Econometric Society and American Academy of Political and Social Science.

On March 7, 2009, he was nominated by President Barack Obama to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. In October 2010, he announced his resignation from the Treasury Department, to return to Princeton University.

On August 29, 2011, he was nominated by Obama to be chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and on November 3, 2011, the Senate unanimously confirmed his nomination.

He also published several books on issues related to education, labor markets and income distribution. Between 2000 and 2006 he wrote for The New York Times Economic Scene column.

Krueger signed a 2018 amici curiae brief that expressed support for Harvard University in the Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College lawsuit.

Personal life Krueger was married to Lisa Simon and had two children.

Death and legacy Krueger was found dead at his home in Princeton on March 16, 2019. In a statement, former President Obama declared: "Alan was someone who was deeper than numbers on a screen and charts on a page," adding, "He saw economic policy not as a matter of abstract theories, but as a way to make people's lives better." He was commemorated by The Economist with a full-page obituary running in their Free Exchange column.

David Card, co-author with Krueger of their influential 1994 paper on the effect of raising the minimum wage,

Books