Booth and UChicago Scholars Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2024)

Two Chicago Booth professors, along with four other University of Chicago faculty members, have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. They include Booth’s Erik Hurst and Amir Sufi, who join the academy’s social and behavioral science class, along with UChicago’s Diane Brentari (humanities and arts), Bonnie T. Fleming (mathematics and physical sciences), Chuan He (biological sciences), and Deborah L. Nelson (humanities and arts).

These scholars join the 2024 class, announced April 24, which includes 250 artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors who have made breakthroughs in their respective fields.

Hurstis the Frank P. and Marianne R. Diassi Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at Booth and the director of the Becker Friedman Institute. He is an economist whose work lies at the intersection of macroeconomics, labor economics, and urban economics. His research has addressed topics such as declining male participation rates, the determinants of US wage growth, the welfare losses to society stemming from gender and racial discrimination, the causes and consequences of urban gentrification, the economics of time use, small business dynamics, life-cycle consumption profiles, the role of housing and mortgage markets in driving macroeconomic conditions, and the choice to invest in human capital. His research has been extensively covered inThe New York Times,The Washington Post,The Wall Street Journal, and theEconomist.

Hurst has received numerous honors and awards including the TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award for Outstanding Scholarly Writing on Lifelong Financial Security, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entrepreneurship, the Emory Williams Award for Outstanding MBA Teaching, and the McKinsey Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Hurst is a member of the Economic Fluctuations Group, Aging Group, and Public Economics Group at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is a member of the Econometrics Society and a Fellow of the IZA Institute of Labor Economics. Hurst was a former co-editor of the Journal of Political Economy, NBER’s Macroannual, and the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Sufiis the Bruce Lindsay Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and Public Policy. His research fits within the broader fields of finance and macroeconomics. While he has researched a number of topics, his main contributions have been in two areas: the role of household debt in macroeconomic fluctuations and empirical financial contracting. He is the co-author ofHouse of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again(University of Chicago Press, 2014).

Sufi was awarded the 2017 Fischer Black Prize by the American Finance Association, given biennially to the top financial economics scholar under the age of 40. He was elected as a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 2022.

He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and co-director of the NBER Program on Corporate Finance. He serves as an associate editor for the American Economic Review.

An earlier version of this story, which includes more information on all six UChicago faculty members elected to the academy, first appeared on UChicago News.

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