Sandra E. Black
Professor of Economics and of International and Public Affairs
Personal Details
Focus areas: labor economics, education economics, intergenerational mobility, discrimination
Sandra E. Black is Professor of Economics and International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She received her B.A. from UC Berkeley and her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. Since that time, she worked as an Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and an Assistant, Associate, and ultimately Professor in the Department of Economics at UCLA, and held the Audre and Bernard Centennial Chair in Economics and Public Affairs in the Department of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin before arriving at Columbia University. She is currently an Editor of the Journal of Labor Economics and was previously a Co-Editor and Editor of the Journal of Human Resources. Dr. Black is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Research Affiliate at IZA, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution. She served as a Member of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers from August 2015-January 2017. Her research focuses on the role of early life experiences on the long-run outcomes of children, as well as issues of gender and discrimination.
Education
- PhD, Harvard University
- BA, UC Berkeley
Honors and Awards
- Dunaway Distinguished Lecture, Michigan State University, April 2019
- Keynote Speaker, AEA Conference on Teaching and Research in Economic Education, June 2018
- Distinguished Visitor, Program for Economic Research, Columbia University, April 2018
- Honorary Doctorate, Norwegian Business School, June 2017
- Keynote Speaker, The Role of the Firm in the Labor Market, March 2017, Berlin, Germany
- Elected Fellow, Society of Labor Economists, May 2016
- Keynote Speaker, Undergraduate Women in Economics Conference, University of Virginia, April 2016
- Invited Presentation, Society of Labor Economists, 2015
- Keynote Speaker, Canadian Women in Economics Lunch, Canadian Economics Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada May 2013
- Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, May 2013
- Keynote Speaker, European Association of Labor Economics, Bonn, Germany, September 2012
- Keynote Speaker, European Society of Population Economics, Hangzou, China, June 2011
- Florence Gould Foundation Fellowship for Research at Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques, 2006, 2009
- Fellow, Center for American Politics and Public Policy, UCLA, 2002-2003
- Upjohn Institute for Research Related to Employment Dissertation Award, Honorable Mention, 1997
- Warren C. Scoville Distinguished Teaching Award, UCLA, Winter 2004, Winter 2007
Research And Publications
In The Media
Professor Sandra Black works on research to help American society understand how to make the United States the land of opportunity for everyone, not just some.
Cecilia Rouse, Biden's pick for CEA chair, has a background in labor economics. Sandra Black comments on the value of this expertise.
Expanding the availability of childcare and lowering costs could deliver a $1.6 trillion boost to U.S. GDP. Sandra Black comments.
In order to address the economic crisis, Sandra Black says, the government must directly give people money.
Economist Sandra Black confirms what you already know—and she quantifies it.