David H. Autor, Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor, MIT, Department of Economics

2026-2027 John R. Raben/Sullivan & Cromwell Fellow Lecture.

Please register by Friday, February 19th.

David H. Autor is the Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, and the co-director of the Labor Studies Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Inequality and Shaping the Future of Work. His scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, skill demands, earnings levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes. 

Autor has received numerous awards for both his scholarship — the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Sherwin Rosen Prize for outstanding contributions to the field of Labor Economics, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in 2019, the Society for Progress Medal in 2021 — and for his teaching, including the MIT MacVicar Faculty Fellowship. In 2020, Autor received the Heinz 25th Special Recognition Award from the Heinz Family Foundation for his work “transforming our understanding of how globalization and technological change are impacting jobs and earning prospects for American workers.” In 2023, Autor was selected as one of two researchers across all scientific fields to be named a NOMIS Distinguished Scientist. Autor was one of five senior scholars selected by the Schmidt Sciences Foundation as an AI2050 Senior Fellow in 2024. The Economist magazine labeled Autor in 2019 as “The academic voice of the American worker.”  

Autor is an elected fellow of the Econometrics Society, the Society of Labor Economists, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Faculty Research Associate of NBER and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. In addition to co-directing the NBER Labor Studies Program and the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Inequality and Shaping the Future of Work, Autor co-directs the MIT School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative and serves as a scientific advisor to the NBER Disability Research Center.

Autor earned a B.A. in Psychology from Tufts University and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 1999. Prior to graduate study, he spent three years directing computer skills education for economically disadvantaged children and adults in San Francisco and South Africa.