Alan Krueger

Alan Krueger
Born	Alan Bennett Krueger September 17, 1960
Birthplace	Livingston, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	March 16, 2019 Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Economist, professor, government official
Title	James Madison Professor of Political Economy
Employer	Princeton University
Known for	Minimum wage research, labor economics, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers
Education	Harvard University (PhD)
Spouse(s)	Lisa Simon
Children	2
Awards	Kershaw Prize (1997)

Alan Bennett Krueger (September 17, 1960 – March 16, 2019) was an American economist who served as the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton University and as a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. A scholar whose work reshaped how economists think about the labor market, Krueger made innovative use of natural experiments to study some of the most consequential questions in public policy, including the effects of minimum wage on employment, the economics of education, and the roots of inequality. His research in the 1990s with David Card, which challenged the then-dominant view that raising the minimum wage necessarily reduces employment, became one of the most cited and debated contributions in modern labor economics. Krueger served in two senior roles under President Barack Obama: as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy from 2009 to 2010, and as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2011 to 2013. He had previously served as chief economist at the United States Department of Labor under President Bill Clinton. Ranked among the 50 highest-ranked economists in the world by Research Papers in Economics, Krueger was a prolific scholar whose body of work spanned labor economics, macroeconomics, and public finance. He died on March 16, 2019, at the age of 58.

Early Life

Alan Bennett Krueger was born on September 17, 1960, in Livingston, New Jersey, a suburban community in Essex County. He grew up in New Jersey, where he developed an early interest in economics and public policy. Details of his family background and childhood remain limited in publicly available sources, though his later career reflected a deep and sustained engagement with questions about the American workforce, education, and economic opportunity that would come to define his scholarly identity.

Krueger's upbringing in a middle-class New Jersey community may have informed his lifelong interest in the economic lives of ordinary workers — a theme that ran through decades of his research on wages, employment, and inequality. By the time he reached college age, he had set his sights on studying economics at one of the nation's leading universities.

Education

Krueger earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University, where he studied economics and industrial and labor relations. He went on to pursue graduate studies at Harvard University, where he earned his doctorate in economics. His doctoral advisors at Harvard were Lawrence Summers and Richard B. Freeman, both prominent economists whose work in labor economics and public policy influenced Krueger's own research trajectory. Under their guidance, Krueger developed the empirical and methodological skills that would become hallmarks of his career, particularly his emphasis on using natural experiments and quasi-experimental methods to study economic questions that had traditionally been approached through theoretical models alone.

Career

Academic Career at Princeton

Following the completion of his doctoral studies, Krueger joined the faculty of Princeton University, where he would spend the bulk of his academic career. He rose to hold one of the university's most distinguished academic positions, serving as the James Madison Professor of Political Economy — a chair that reflected his dual engagement with economics and public affairs. His academic home was the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (later renamed the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs) and the Department of Economics, where he mentored graduate students and taught courses in labor economics, public finance, and economic policy.

At Princeton, Krueger established himself as one of the most productive and creative empirical economists of his generation. He was a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and contributed to a wide range of scholarly debates. His primary fields of expertise were labor economics, macroeconomics, and public finance, and his publications appeared in the leading journals in the discipline.

Krueger was also active in international academic affairs. He served on the Executive and Supervisory Committee of CERGE-EI, the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education – Economics Institute in Prague, a joint workplace of Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences that trains economists from post-communist countries.

Minimum Wage Research

Krueger's most influential and widely discussed contribution to economics was his research on the effects of minimum wage increases on employment. In a series of studies conducted with David Card during the early and mid-1990s, Krueger challenged the prevailing consensus among economists that raising the minimum wage would lead to significant job losses, particularly among low-wage workers.

The most famous of these studies examined the effects of New Jersey's 1992 minimum wage increase from $4.25 to $5.05 per hour on employment in the fast-food industry. Card and Krueger surveyed fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and in neighboring eastern Pennsylvania, where the minimum wage had not changed, creating a natural experiment that allowed them to compare outcomes in the two states. Their finding — that employment in New Jersey's fast-food restaurants did not decrease and may have actually increased following the wage hike — contradicted standard economic models and ignited a fierce debate in the profession.

The Card-Krueger minimum wage studies were published as academic papers and later expanded into the book Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage (1995), which became one of the most cited and debated works in modern labor economics. The research was praised by some scholars for its innovative methodology and policy relevance, while others criticized the data and the conclusions drawn from them. A subsequent study by Krueger and Card using Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll data largely confirmed their earlier findings.

The minimum wage research conducted by Card and Krueger had a lasting impact on both the academic literature and public policy. It helped shift the terms of debate around minimum wage legislation and influenced policy discussions at the federal, state, and local levels in the United States and abroad. Their work is frequently cited in arguments for minimum wage increases and has been credited with helping to legitimize natural experiments as a tool for economic research — a methodological innovation that was later recognized when David Card was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2021 for his contributions to labor economics, including the Card-Krueger minimum wage studies.

Research on Education and Inequality

Beyond his minimum wage research, Krueger made significant contributions to the economics of education and the study of economic inequality. He conducted research on the relationship between class size and student achievement, the economic returns to education, and the labor market effects of school quality. His work in this area was characterized by the same empirical rigor and innovative use of data that defined his minimum wage research.

Krueger also studied the economics of inequality and coined the concept of the "Great Gatsby Curve," a term he used in a widely cited 2012 speech to describe the inverse relationship between income inequality and intergenerational economic mobility. The concept — which demonstrated that countries with higher levels of income inequality also tend to have lower rates of social mobility — became a key reference point in public discussions about inequality in the United States and internationally.

In his later years, Krueger turned his attention to new research topics, including the economics of the music industry and the opioid crisis. His 2019 book Rockonomics: A Backstage Tour of What the Music Industry Can Teach Us About Economics and Life, published posthumously, used the music industry as a lens through which to examine broader economic trends such as the rise of superstars, the effects of technological disruption, and the dynamics of winner-take-all markets.

Research on Terrorism

Krueger also contributed to the study of the economics of terrorism. His research explored the socioeconomic backgrounds of individuals who participate in terrorist activities, challenging the common assumption that poverty and lack of education are the primary drivers of terrorism. His book What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism (2007) presented evidence suggesting that many terrorists come from middle-class and educated backgrounds, and that the roots of terrorism are more closely linked to political conditions and a lack of civil liberties than to economic deprivation.

Public Service

Krueger served in multiple senior positions in the United States government, bringing his academic expertise to bear on real-world policy challenges. His first government role came in 1994–1995, when he served as chief economist at the United States Department of Labor under President Bill Clinton.

In May 2009, Krueger was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. He was confirmed and served in that role from May 2009 to October 2010, a period during which the United States was grappling with the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the deepest recession since the Great Depression. In this capacity, Krueger advised Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on a wide range of economic policy matters, including the design and implementation of the government's response to the economic crisis. He returned to Princeton University in October 2010.

In August 2011, President Obama nominated Krueger to serve as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), replacing Austan Goolsbee. As the 27th chair of the CEA, Krueger served from November 7, 2011, to August 2, 2013, advising the president on economic policy during a period of gradual recovery from the Great Recession. His tenure at the CEA was marked by attention to issues of jobs, inequality, and the labor market — topics that had been central to his academic work. He was succeeded as CEA chair by Jason Furman.

After leaving government service in 2013, Krueger returned to Princeton University, where he continued his research and teaching until his death in 2019.

Personal Life

Krueger was married to Lisa Simon, and the couple had two children. The family resided in Princeton, New Jersey, where Krueger had spent the majority of his professional life.

Krueger died on March 16, 2019, at his home in Princeton, New Jersey. He was 58 years old. Princeton University announced his death on March 18, 2019, describing him as a "brilliant and devoted economist" and noting the profound impact he had made on both scholarship and public policy. The New York Times reported that the cause of death was suicide, according to the police.

His death prompted an outpouring of tributes from colleagues, former students, and policymakers. Former President Barack Obama issued a statement praising Krueger's contributions to economic policy and his commitment to public service. Numerous economists and commentators noted the significance of his scholarly contributions and the personal warmth he brought to his interactions with students and colleagues.

Recognition

Krueger received numerous awards and honors over the course of his career. In 1997, he was awarded the Kershaw Prize by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, given to recognize distinguished contributions to public policy analysis and management by a scholar under the age of 40.

He was ranked among the 50 highest-ranked economists in the world according to Research Papers in Economics (RePEc), a measure based on the citation impact and scholarly output of researchers in the discipline. His publications appeared in the field's most prominent journals, and his books were widely read and debated both within and outside the academy.

Krueger was a fellow of the Econometric Society and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served on the editorial boards of several major economics journals and was a frequent contributor to public discussions about economic policy through op-eds, public lectures, and media appearances. The New York Times maintained a dedicated topics page for Krueger, reflecting his prominence as a public intellectual and policy adviser.

Legacy

Alan Krueger's contributions to economics and public policy continued to influence scholarship and debate well after his death. His minimum wage research with David Card remains among the most frequently cited works in labor economics and played a central role in the evolution of empirical methods in the social sciences. The use of natural experiments that Card and Krueger helped to popularize became a standard tool in the economist's toolkit, and the approach was recognized at the highest levels of the profession when David Card received the 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, with the Nobel committee explicitly citing the Card-Krueger minimum wage studies as foundational work.

His concept of the "Great Gatsby Curve" entered the broader public vocabulary around inequality and social mobility, and continued to be referenced in academic and policy discussions. His research on the economics of education, terrorism, and the music industry demonstrated the breadth of his intellectual curiosity and his ability to bring economic analysis to bear on diverse topics.

As a public servant, Krueger brought an unusual combination of scholarly rigor and practical engagement to his roles in government. His tenure at the Department of Labor, the Treasury Department, and the Council of Economic Advisers was marked by a commitment to evidence-based policymaking and a belief that economics could and should inform the public good.

David Leonhardt of The New York Times wrote that Krueger "devoted part of his career to showing that the economy could work better for most people" and that his work offered "two lessons" — that the economy was not delivering for ordinary workers as well as it could, and that well-designed government policies could make a difference.

Princeton University remembered Krueger as "an esteemed labor economist who advised Bill Clinton and Barack Obama during their presidencies" and as someone who had a "profound impact" on both the university and the broader world of economic research and policy.