Lawrence Katz

About

Lawrence Katz is the Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics at Harvard University. The page provides information about his role, contact details, and a list of his former Ph.D. students, but does not include specific details about his research focus, background, or key contributions. Therefore, no detailed biography is available from the provided text.

Research topics

• Economics
• Sociology
• Demographic economics
• Psychology
• Business
• Econometrics
• Labour economics

Selected publications

• The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms*

  The Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2020 · 2051 citations

  Abstract The fall of labor’s share of GDP in the United States and many other countries in recent decades is well documented but its causes remain uncertain. Existing empirical assessments typically rely on industry or macro data, obscuring heterogeneity among firms. In this article, we analyze micro panel data from the U.S. Economic Census since 1982 and document empirical patterns to assess a new interpretation of the fall in the labor share based on the rise of “superstar firms.” If globaliza…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Extending the Race between Education and Technology

  AEA Papers and Proceedings · 2020-05-01 · 125 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The race between education and technology provides a canonical framework that does a remarkable job of explaining US wage structure changes across the twentieth century. The framework involves secular increases in the demand for more-educated workers from skill-biased technological change, combined with variations in the supply of skills from changes in educational access. We expand the analysis backward and forward. The framework helps explain rising skill differentials in the nineteenth and tw…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• In Praise of Moderation: Suggestions for the Scope and Use of Pre-Analysis Plans for RCTs in Economics

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2020-04-01 · 92 citations

  reportOpen access

  Pre-Analysis Plans (PAPs) for randomized evaluations are becoming increasingly common in Economics, but their definition remains unclear and their practical applications therefore vary widely. Based on our collective experiences as researchers and editors, we articulate a set of principles for the ex-ante scope and ex-post use of PAPs. We argue that the key benefits of a PAP can usually be realized by completing the registration fields in the AEA RCT Registry. Specific cases where more detail ma…

  PublisherDOI

• Creating Moves to Opportunity: Experimental Evidence on Barriers to Neighborhood Choice

  American Economic Review · 2024-04-30 · 87 citations

  article

  Low-income families often live in low-upward-mobility neighborhoods. We study why by using a randomized trial with housing voucher recipients that provided information, financial support, and customized search assistance to move to high-opportunity neighborhoods. The treatment increased the fraction moving to high-upward-mobility areas from 15 to 53 percent. A second trial reveals this treatment effect is driven primarily by customized search assistance. Qualitative interviews show that the inte…

  PublisherDOI

• Why Do Sectoral Employment Programs Work? Lessons from WorkAdvance

  Journal of Labor Economics · 2022-04-01 · 69 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This paper examines the evidence from randomized evaluations of sector-focused training programs that target low-wage workers and combine up-front screening, occupational and soft-skills training, and wraparound services. The programs generate substantial and persistent earnings gains (12%–34%) following training. Theoretical mechanisms for program impacts are explored for the WorkAdvance demonstration. Earnings gains are generated by getting participants into higher-wage jobs in higher-earning…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01AG031259

  NIH · $1.9M · 2017

• NIH Grant R01HD040404

  NIH · $3.9M · 2013

Frequent coauthors

• Claudia Goldin

  Harvard University

  218 shared

• Jeffrey R. Kling

  87 shared

• David Autor

  85 shared

• Alan B. Krueger

  Agricultural Research Service

  63 shared

• Jens Ludwig

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  57 shared

• David Dorn

  45 shared

• Jeffrey B. Liebman

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  37 shared

• Lisa Sanbonmatsu

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  36 shared

Labs

• Lawrence KatzPI

Education

• Ph.D., Economics

  Harvard University

  1985

• B.A., Economics

  Yale University

  1980

Awards & honors

• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Scien…
• Fellow of the Econometric Society
• Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists

Similar researchers at Harvard University

• Andrei Shleiferh-200
• Alberto Alesinah-161
• John Y. Campbellh-132