Ariel Pakes
Harvard University
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Primary Section: 54, Economic Sciences Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2017)
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Biosketch
Ariel Pakes is the Thomas Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics at Harvard University, where he teaches courses in Industrial Organization and Econometrics. He is recognized for his work he has done in developing methodology that enables the analysis of market outcomes of policy and environmental change. Ariel was born and grew up in Edmonton Canada, received a BA and MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a doctorate from Harvard University. He taught at the Hebrew University, the University of Wisconsin and Yale University before moving to Harvard. Ariel received the Frisch Medal of the Econometric Society in 1986, was the distinguished fellow of the Industrial Organization Society in 2007, and was awarded the Jean-Jaques Lamont Prize in 2017. Ariel was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Science in 2002 and to the National Academy of Science in 2017. Ariel has chaired the AEA Census Advisory Panel, been on the editorial board of several journals and on a number of NSF, American Academy, National Academy of Sciences, American Economic Society and Econometric Society committees. Much of his methodological work has been incorporated into the way government agencies evaluate the likely impact of policy changes, and some has been incorporated into the economic statistics appearing in government reports.
Research Interests
Ariel's research has focused on developing methodology that enables empirical analysis of the market responses to environmental and policy changes (e.g. mergers, tari changes, factor price changes...). This includes; i) the estimation of demand systems that are capable of analyzing the impact of these changes on prices and the demand for new products, ii) developing methods capable of assessing the impact of such changes on productivity, and iii) developing models that enables the analssis of the impacts of these changes on investments and hence the evolution of markets over time. This required an the development of certain econometric and theoretical tools. Currently he is working on estimators for problems involving moment inequalities and on empirically useable theoretical and computational tools for analyzing dynamic games. In the past Ariel applied these tools to the analysis of the auto,Ariel?s research has focused on developing methods for empirically analyzing market responses to environmental and policy changes. This includes developing: i) demand systems that are capable of analyzing the impact of environmental changes (e.g. mergers) on prices, ii) methods capable of analyzing the impact of policy changes (e.g. deregulation) on productivity, and iii) models capable of following the impacts of these changes on the evolution of markets over time. He and his co-authors have applied these tools to the analysis of the auto, electricity, health care, and telecommunications equipment industries. Ariel also developed techniques for: analyzing the impacts of privately funded research and development activity, for constructing a more accurate Consumer Price Index, and for analyzing the impact of incentive schemes on the hospital allocations of doctors.
