Claudia Goldin

Claudia Goldin is an American economic historian and labor economist. She is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University and a co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research's Gender in the Economy Study Group. She was the director of the NBER’s Development of the American Economy program from 1989 to 2017. In 2023, Goldin was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize for advancing the understanding of women's labor market outcomes and the root causes of the gender pay gap. She was the third woman to win the award and the first woman to win the award solo.

An economic historian and a labor economist, Goldin's research covers a wide range of topics, including the female labor force, the gender gap in earnings, income inequality, technological change, education, and immigration. Most of her research interprets the present through the lens of the past and explores the origins of current issues of concern. Her most influential papers in that area have concerned the history of women’s quest for career and family, coeducation in higher education, the impact of the “pill” on women’s career and marriage decisions, women’s surnames after marriage as a social indicator, the reasons why women are now the majority of undergraduates, and the new lifecycle of women’s employment.

She is the author and editor of several books, among them "Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women," "The Regulated Economy: A Historical Approach to Political Economy," "The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century," and "Career & Family: Women's Century-Long Journey toward Equity" to name a few. Her book "The Race between Education and Technology" won the 2008 R.R. Hawkins Award for the most outstanding scholarly work in all arts and sciences disciplines.

She has been elected fellow of numerous organizations, including the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Society of Labor Economists, the Econometric Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a member of sections 53 (Social and Political Sciences) and 54 (Economic Sciences) of the National Academy of Sciences. For 28 years, ending in 2017, Goldin was the director of the Development of the American Economy (DAE) Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).