PROGRAM IN STRUCTURAL MICROECONOMICS

    Program Directors: Costas Meghir and Phil Haile

It is therefore not possible in many economic problems to separate causes and effects by varying the causes one at a time, studying the separate effect of each cause — a method so fruitful in the natural sciences. On the other hand, economists do possess more elaborate and better established theories of economic behavior than the theories of motion of material bodies known to Kepler.... While much in these theories is incomplete and in need of reformulation and elaboration ... such theory as we have is an indispensable element in understanding in a quantitative way the formation of economic variables.... An observed regularity not traced to underlying behavior patterns, institutional rules, and laws of production  ... is of no help whatever in assessing the probable effects of stated economic policies or institutional changes.
               T. Koopmans, 1947, CFP 25a

Since its earliest days, the Cowles Commission and Cowles Foundation have emphasized the importance of empirical research with a firm foundation in economic theory. Much of this work has been aimed at uncovering policy invariant (i.e., "structural'') economic relationships for both positive and normative purposes.

The Cowles Foundation Program in Structural Microeconomics continues in this tradition, supporting cutting edge research in a variety of fields of microeconomics that takes seriously both the statistics and the economics required for informative empirical work. The Structural Microeconomics program sponsors visiting positions, post-docs, conferences, and graduate training.

VISITORS, 2011/2012 (Contact information when available)
    Flavio Cunha, University of Pennsylvania (2/6/12 - 2/24/12)
    Jan De Loecker, Princeton University (8/15/11 - 10/16/11)
    Michael Dickstein, Harvard University (8/1/11 - 5/31/12)
    Jonathan Eaton, Penn State (2/13/12 - 2/17/12)
    Robert Feenstra, University of California, Davis (3/26/12 - 3/3012)
    Eric French, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (3/26/12 - 4/13/12)
    Kei Kawai, Northwestern University (8/22/11 - 12/20/11)
    Thibaut Lamadon, University College London (9/1/11 - 5/31/12)
    Jeremy Lise, University College London (3/26/12 - 4/13/12)
    Hamish Low, University of Cambridge (4/16/12 - 4/27/12)
    Enrico Moretti, UC, Berkeley (10/17/11 - 10/28/11)
    Aviv Nevo, Northwestern University (3/26/12 - 3/30/12)