An interesting profile of Stanford economist Raj Chetty and
his work on inequality:
“That makes Mr.
Chetty one of the few people affecting both sides in the presidential debate.
He brings to the task formidable credentials: Harvard PhD at age 23; university
tenure at 27; and a MacArthur “genius grant” at 33, the same age he won the
John Bates Clark medal for best American economist under the age of 40. He says
he was drawn to mobility as a subject, in part, because of what he saw as the
vast differences in opportunity between the U.S. and his native India, which he
left at age nine.
“He’s the closest
thing I have ever seen to a real live Mr. Spock, half Vulcan, half human,” said
Harvard economist Lawrence Katz, a former Clinton administration economist, who
has known Mr. Chetty since he was a Harvard undergraduate. “He knows where to
look to find the right data and what to do to answer the most important
questions with it. But unlike many technical economists, he’s concerned with
real people and the disadvantaged.””