Prof. Steve Pischke, Ph.D.

Topics in Causal Inference

Jörn-Steffen Pischke has worked on various topics on labor markets and applied econometrics. He is well known for his books with Josh Angrist Mostly Harmless Econometrics and Mastering Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect. They are now working on a new book together with Alberto Abadie and Brigham Frandsen to chart recent developments in the empirical landscape. Topics in this volume will include machine learning methods for causal inference, event study models, new thinking on IV identification and weak instruments and more. Mr. Pischke’s CES Lectures, Topics in Causal Inference, will draw on some material from the book project.

Mr. Pischke previously studied the formation and financing of human capital accumulation with a particular attention towards understanding the very different ways in which vocational education is financed in different countries like Germany (with firm based vocational training) and in the U.S. (with school based vocational training). This work has identified the degree of compression of the wage structure as a central ingredient to understanding working of the market for training. He has also worked on estimating the returns to training and evaluating education policies. Other work has focused on understanding changes in the wage structure, retirement, migration, the transition in the east German labor market, and household savings.

Jörn-Steffan Pischke is Professor at the London School of Economics and a research associate at the Centre for Economic Performance. He was previously a researcher at the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim and an Assistant Professor at MIT. He has also served as an editor of the Economic Journal and of the European Economic Review and as a program director for the CEPR’s labor economics program. Jörn-Steffen Pischke studied economics at the University of Konstanz, the State University of New York in Binghamton, and at Princeton University, where he received his PhD in 1992.