H. Gregg Lewis: Perhaps the Father of Modern Labor Economics

Daniel Hamermesh

No 13551, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: H. Gregg Lewis did fundamental research outlining the economic effects of trade unions and considering how to measure them carefully. He also laid out the theory of the supply and demand for labor in careful detail that has underlain economists' thinking about these outcomes. Aside from innovating modern-style research in labor economics, his work provided an exemplar of care in thinking about and measuring economic phenomena. His study of labor markets foreshadowed numerous subsequent fundamental articles, including our theories of hedonic prices and of wage selectivity. Supervising numerous Chicago Ph.D. dissertations, all of which heavily bore his stamp and two of which were by future Nobel Prize winners, he contributed indirectly to the development of applied microeconomics through several later generations of researchers.

Keywords: Chicago dissertations; labor supply; labor demand; economics of unions; general equilibrium; empirical methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B21 C29 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2020-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Robert A. Cord (ed.), The Palgrave Companion to Chicago Economics, Vol. II, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, 574-594,

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp13551.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13551

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().