Alan B. Krueger (1960-2019).

Alan Krueger, the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton University, passed away on 16 March at the age of 58. He was among the most innovative and influential economists of the past four decades. Alan's scholarship revealed the operation of real-world labor markets, the impacts of the minimum wage and school resources, the measurement of subjective well-being, and the plight of the unemployed. He pushed the field of economics toward a more evidence-based and scientific approach to research and policy analysis. Alan Krueger was born on 17 September 1960 and grew up in Livingston, New Jersey. After graduating from Cornell University in 1983 and pursuing graduate studies in economics at Harvard University, he earned his Ph.D. in 1987. He became an assistant professor that year in the Department of Economics and the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, earned tenure in 1992, and remained at Princeton for the rest of his career, where he served as a caring mentor to many generations of students, young scholars, and future policy-makers. From 1994 to 1995, he served as the chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor under President Bill Clinton. Later, he was an assistant secretary of the Treasury from 2009 to 2010 and then chair of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2011 to 2013, both under President Barack Obama. Alan gained prominence as a scholar in the early 1990s as a leader in the “credibility revolution” in empirical economics. His pioneering work used natural experiments to provide compelling estimates of the returns to educational investments and the impact of minimum wages. His pathbreaking work with economist Joshua Angrist used quasi-experimental variation in the date of birth combined with the operation of compulsory schooling laws to estimate a large positive causal impact of schooling on earnings, even for students on the margin of dropping out of school. Alan and economist David Card harnessed historical changes in state education resources across birth cohorts to provide convincing estimates of the substantial returns from increases in school resources on students' long-run economic outcomes. Alan used the Tennessee Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) class-size reduction experiment to illustrate the advantage of randomized controlled trials for policy evaluation. Alan and I met in 1986 when I was a new assistant professor and Alan was completing his Ph.D. in the Harvard Economics Department. Alan quickly became one of my closest colleagues, collaborators, and intellectual confidantes and remained so for the next 33 years. My fondest memories of Alan come from our intense, yet entertaining, daily phone calls when we were both young scholars. Our conversations, ranging from research projects to professional gossip, always displayed his quick wit, laser focus on the most important questions, and infectious enthusiasm for new ideas. A multitasker, he would later regale visitors with a history of his Treasury office while devising new approaches to estimate the effect of tax credits. When we both gave talks at the National Governors Association meeting in Santa Fe this past summer, it was Alan who showed me the best swag and introduced me to the most engaging governors and staffers. He was involved in everything and connected to everybody. ![Figure][1] PHOTO: SAMEER A. KHAN/FOTOBUDDY My work with Alan exploited the federal minimum wage increase of 1991 to estimate its impact on employment and wages by collecting survey data on fast-food restaurants in a large, low-wage state (Texas). We found (contrary to our expectations and the prevailing wisdom) that employment increased more in the lower-wage restaurants directly affected by the higher minimum wage as compared with higher-wage restaurants that were not constrained. Alan's classic study on the minimum wage with David Card, comparing fast-food restaurants in New Jersey before and after the state increased its minimum wage in 1992 with those just across the border in Pennsylvania, also found no adverse employment impact. Card and Krueger expanded the scope of this research in their 1995 book Myth and Measurement to examine the impact of minimum wages on income distribution and to reassess models of the labor market. His “can do” attitude enabled Alan to charge ahead with important research even if it meant collecting data from nonstandard sources. He founded the Princeton Survey Research Center in 1992 to facilitate such efforts. Alan's findings were often unconventional, such as his demonstration that poverty was unlikely to be a major cause of terrorism, that attending a more elite university did not raise earnings above those earned after attending a lesser institution for most, and that economic growth eventually improves the environment. He built the new field of “Rockonomics” by showing how economic analysis can illuminate concert ticket pricing and musician incomes. Alan helped develop innovative survey methods to improve the measurement of happiness. His research highlighted the psychological cost of searching for a job as well as the high incidence of pain among the long-term jobless. Alan's recent work documented the rise of the online gig economy and its complications for labor market regulations. Alan's rigorous research methods were reminiscent of the best investigative journalism. His work with economist Alexandre Mas linked traffic fatalities to defective tires produced after a labor dispute. With economist Orley Ashenfelter, he used actual franchise contracts to provide smoking-gun evidence of nonpoaching agreements limiting worker mobility, research that quickly led to probes by multiple state attorneys general. Because of Alan Krueger, the field of economics has become more scientific through the adoption of credible empirical methods that identify causal relationships and more humanistic through innovative survey methods that improve the measurement of well-being, pain, and work arrangements. He combined intellectual curiosity, a passion for using social science to improve lives, and an ability to uncover evidence from unexpected sources. Alan Krueger's work likely has benefited millions of workers from stronger evidence to guide public policy. Most important, he was a devoted husband and father who leaves behind his wife Lisa and his children Benjamin and Sydney. [1]: pending:yes