Oster, Shapiro Featured in Applied Economics Symposium

Which young economists are doing the most impressive work on real-world problems?

New York Times business writer David Leonhardt posed this question to a number of senior economists attending an annual conference. Jesse Shapiro and Emily Oster, economists at the University of Chicago’s Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory, ranked among the 13 young economists named most often.

The husband and wife pair delivered keynote lectures at the Berry Center's Applied Economics Symposium on May 17, 2006. Shapiro's presentation was entitled "The Economics of News Media Content."

Jesse Shapiro and Emily Oster

Emily Oster

The topic of Oster's symposium presentation was "The Economics of HIV/AIDS in Africa."

Oster has brought an economist's eye to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. Her research shows that HIV infections in Africa are perhaps not as widespread as previously thought, but that the epidemic is rampant in the poorest areas. Treating simple conditions for $3.50 per year may do more to slow the spread of HIV than $300 per year in treating AIDS, she says, and any solution to the epidemic must aim at poverty first.

Oster received her B.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard in 2002 and 2006, respectively. She was an inaugural Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory. Oster is currently an assistant professor of Economics at the University of Chicago where she studies health and development with a particular emphasis on the interactions between disease and human behavior.

Jesse Shapiro

Shapiro's presentation was entitled "The Economics of News Media Content." 

Shapiro's recent work finds that news consumers typically choose sources that conform to their own views. Thus consumers drive media bias more than do media owners, and even large conglomerates are seen to adapt their coverage to local views.

Shapiro received a B.A. in Economics and an M.A. in Statistics from Harvard University in 2001, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard in 2005. At the time of his presentation at Cornell, he was a Faculty Research Fellow in Labor Studies at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Shapiro is now an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business.