David Autor

David Autor is Ford Professor in the MIT Department of Economics and co-director of the NBER Labor Studies Programme and the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative. His scholarship explores the labour-market impacts of technological change and globalisation on job polarisation, 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, and the Heinz 25th Special Recognition Award from the Heinz Family Foundation – and his teaching, including the MIT MacVicar Faculty Fellowship. In a 2019 article, the Economist magazine labelled him as “the academic voice of the American worker.” Later that same year, and with (at least) equal justification, he was christened “Twerpy MIT Economist” by John Oliver of Last Week Tonight in a segment on automation and employment. Most recently, Autor was recognised as one of two 2023 NOMIS Distinguished Scientist and Scholar awardees.