Michael Spence | |
|---|---|
 Spence in 2008 | |
| Born | (1943-11-07)November 7, 1943 (age 82)[1] Montclair,New Jersey, US |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Harvard University,(Ph.D.) University of Oxford,(B.A.) Princeton University,(B.A.) |
| Thesis | Market Signalling (1972) |
| Doctoral advisor | Kenneth Arrow[2] Thomas Schelling[2] |
| Influences | Richard Zeckhauser |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Microeconomics,labor economics |
| Institutions | Harvard University Stanford University SDA Bocconi School of Management New York University |
| Notable ideas | Signaling theory |
| Awards | John Bates Clark Medal (1981) Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (2001) |
| Website | |
Andrew Michael Spence (born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American economist and Nobel laureate.[3]
Spence is the William R. Berkley Professor in Economics and Business at theStern School of Business atNew York University, and the Philip H. Knight Professor of Management, Emeritus, and Dean, Emeritus, at theStanford Graduate School of Business.[4][5]
Together withGeorge A. Akerlof andJoseph E. Stiglitz, Spence is a co-recipient of the 2001Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, "for their analyses of markets with asymmetric information."
Spence is noted for his job-marketsignaling model, which inspired research into this branch ofcontract theory. In this model, employees signal their respective skills to employers by acquiring a certain degree of education, which is costly to them. Employers will pay higher wages to more educated employees, because they know that the proportion of employees with high abilities is higher among the educated ones, as it is less costly for them to acquire education than it is for employees with low abilities. For the model to work, it is not even necessary for education to have any intrinsic value if it can convey information about the sender (employee) to the recipient (employer) and if the signal is costly.
Spence received his middle and high school education at theUniversity of Toronto Schools of theUniversity of Toronto. He later came back toRotman School of Management at theUniversity of Toronto to serve as a member of the Rotman Dean's Advisory Board.[6]
Spence attendedPrinceton University as an undergraduate student and graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in philosophy in 1966, completing a senior thesis titled "Freedom and Determinism".[7] Spence then studied atMagdalen College,University of Oxford as aRhodes Scholar, and received a B.A./M.A. in mathematics in 1968.[8] Spence then began graduate studies in economics at Harvard University with the support of a Danforth Graduate Fellowship in the fall of 1968. He received a Ph.D. in economics in 1972, completing a dissertation titled "Market signalling" under the supervision ofKenneth Arrow andThomas C. Schelling.[9] Spence was awarded the David A. Wells Prize for outstanding doctoral dissertation in 1972.
He stepped down as Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1999 and joinedOak Hill Capital Partners.[10] He is the Chairman of theCommission on Growth and Development, and a distinguished visiting fellow at theCouncil on Foreign Relations.[11]
Spence joined the faculty ofNew York University'sStern School of Business on September 1, 2010.[12] He joined the faculty ofSDA Bocconi School of Management in Italy in July 2011.[13]
He is a senior fellow atStanford University'sHoover Institution and the Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus of Management in the Graduate School of Business. Spence is also a Commissioner for the Global Commission on Internet Governance.[14][15] Additionally, Spence is also a member of theBerggruen Institute's 21st Century Council.[16][17]
He is the author of three books and 50 articles, and has also been a consistent contributor toProject Syndicate, an international newspaper syndicate, since 2008. Among his beliefs are thathigh-frequency trading should be banned.[18]
Spence had bothBill Gates andSteve Ballmer in a graduate-level economics class at Harvard. In a 1999Fortune interview, however, Gates and Ballmer admitted not attending class and passing only after cramming for four days before the final.[19]
Spence is an Honorary Fellow ofMagdalen College, Oxford, where he studied as aRhodes Scholar.[20] He was the recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001, as well as theJohn Bates Clark Medal from the American Economics Association in 1981.[21]
Spence was elected as a Fellow of theEconometric Society in 1976 and a member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1983.[22][23]
Spence currently lives inMilan,Italy with his wife and children.[citation needed]
including the Prize Lecture December 8, 2001Signaling in Retrospect and the Informational Structure of Markets| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by | Laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 2001 Served alongside:George A. Akerlof,Joseph E. Stiglitz | Succeeded by |
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