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Jesse Shapiro
Jesse Shapiro
from Wikipedia

Jesse M. Shapiro is an American economist who has served as the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration at Harvard University since 2022.[2] He was previously the George S. and Nancy B. Parker Professor of Economics at Brown University from 2015 to 2019, and the Eastman Professor of Political Economy at Brown from 2019 to 2021.[2] He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2021.[2]

Key Information

Education and career

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Shapiro attended Stuyvesant High School, where he was valedictorian in 1997.[3] He received an AB in economics and an AM in statistics from Harvard University in 2001, and a PhD in economics from Harvard in 2005.[4] From 2005 to 2007, he was a Becker Fellow at the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory at the University of Chicago.[2] He was an assistant professor of economics at the Booth School of Business from 2007 to 2010, where he was appointed the Chookaszian Family Professor of Economics in 2014.[2] He moved to Brown University the following year, where he was the George S. and Nancy B. Parker Professor of Economics from 2015 to 2019, and the Eastman Professor of Political Economy from 2019 to 2021.[2] He returned to his alma mater, Harvard, in 2022, where he is currently the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration.[2]

Shapiro's work has made significant contributions to the fields of industrial organization, political economy and behavioral economics, and he has authored or co-authored papers on obesity in the United States, polarisation in the media, and polarisation in political opinions.[5][6][7]

In 2008, The Economist described Shapiro as one of the 8 best young economists in the world.[8] In 2021, he was named a MacArthur Fellow for "devising new frameworks of analysis to advance understanding of media bias, ideological polarization, and the efficacy of public policy interventions."[9]

Shapiro has been a research associate at the NBER since 2011, and was a member of the Steering Committee of its Political Economy Program from 2014 to 2020.[2] He served as Editor of the Journal of Political Economy from 2012 to 2017, and was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 2017.[2]

Selected works

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  • Cutler, David M., Edward L. Glaeser, and Jesse M. Shapiro. "Why have Americans become more obese?." Journal of Economic Perspectives 17, no. 3 (2003): 93–118.
  • Gentzkow, Matthew, and Jesse M. Shapiro. "What drives media slant? Evidence from US daily newspapers." Econometrica 78, no. 1 (2010): 35–71.
  • Shapiro, Jesse M. "Smart cities: quality of life, productivity, and the growth effects of human capital." Review of Economics and Statistics 88, no. 2 (2006): 324–335.
  • Gentzkow, Matthew, and Jesse M. Shapiro. "Media bias and reputation." Journal of Political Economy 114, no. 2 (2006): 280–316.
  • Gentzkow, Matthew, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Michael Sinkinson. "The effect of newspaper entry and exit on electoral politics." American Economic Review 101, no. 7 (2011): 2980–3018.
  • Gentzkow, Matthew, and Jesse M. Shapiro. "Ideological segregation online and offline." Quarterly Journal of Economics 126, no. 4 (2011): 1799–1839.

Personal life

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Shapiro is the son of Joyce and Arvin Shapiro. He married economist Emily Oster in June 2006.[10] They have two children.[11]

References

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[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia
from Grokipedia
Jesse M. Shapiro is an American specializing in applied microeconomics, with research focusing on , , and social policy design. He holds the position of George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration at . Shapiro earned a BA in in and a PhD in in 2005, both from . Shapiro's notable contributions include developing empirical frameworks to quantify media slant and its effects on beliefs, often revealing systematic biases in coverage that diverge from consumer demand or factual balance. His work has advanced of ideological polarization and incentives, using large-scale to test first-principles models against observed behaviors in markets and . In , he received a MacArthur Fellowship, providing $625,000 in unrestricted support for innovative research addressing complex social issues through rigorous empirics. Shapiro's publications have garnered over 24,000 citations, underscoring his influence in and .

Early Life and Education

Undergraduate Studies

Shapiro earned an AB in from in 2001, graduating summa cum laude. In the same year, he received an AM in from . These degrees reflected his pre-existing interest in , which he pursued through rigorous coursework emphasizing analytical approaches to incentives and decision-making. During his undergraduate studies, Shapiro first engaged with empirical methods in , fostering a curiosity for data-driven analysis of economic behavior that would inform his later work. His academic honors underscored a strong foundation in quantitative reasoning, though specific early projects or extracurriculars tied to economics remain undocumented in primary records.

Graduate Studies

Shapiro earned an A.M. in statistics and a PhD in from in 2001 and 2005, respectively, following directly upon his undergraduate degree. During his doctoral program, he received funding from the Graduate Research Fellowship for 2001–2004. His graduate training focused on applied , where he honed empirical techniques for causal identification and structural estimation, applied to questions of market incentives and information processing in contexts such as media and . These methodological foundations, rooted in rigorous data-driven analysis rather than preconceived ideological models, informed his early collaborative work on news provision and audience demand.

Academic Career

Early Positions

Following his PhD in economics from in 2005, Shapiro joined the University of Chicago Booth School of Business as an of in 2007. In this initial faculty role, he began developing an independent research agenda focused on applied microeconomics, particularly in media markets and , while benefiting from the Booth school's emphasis on empirical rigor and interdisciplinary approaches. Shapiro's early tenure-track position at Chicago Booth, spanning 2007 to 2010, coincided with his affiliation as a at the (NBER), a role that provided access to collaborative networks and datasets essential for data-intensive . This NBER connection, established around the outset of his career, facilitated connections with senior economists and supported his initial publications, which examined causal mechanisms in economic behavior using quasi-experimental methods. During this period, Shapiro demonstrated rapid academic progress on the tenure track, achieving promotion to full Professor of Economics at Booth in 2010, just three years after joining as —a testament to the impact of his early independent contributions in establishing his reputation in and . This swift advancement reflected the quality and originality of his tenure-track output, including foundational work on market incentives in information provision, without reliance on co-authorships dominant in his graduate training.

Tenure at Brown University


Jesse M. Shapiro joined the Department of Economics at in 2015, following his tenure as the Chookaszian Family Professor of Economics at the Booth School of Business. Upon arrival, he was appointed the George S. and Nancy B. Parker Professor of Economics, a position he held until 2019, and also served as the Eastman Professor of . As a tenured full , Shapiro's time at Brown represented a phase of mid-career stability, during which he focused on integrating empirical methods into the study of within the department.
In 2016, Shapiro received Brown's Presidential Faculty Award, recognizing his contributions to the university, and delivered a emphasizing the application of rigorous statistical techniques and novel datasets to economic inquiries. His institutional role supported the department's emphasis on empirical , aligning with Brown's interdisciplinary initiatives such as the Population Studies and Training Center, where he affiliated his work on social and policy dynamics. During the , amid rising interest in polarization, Shapiro participated in elucidating and shifts in political , including a 2017 discussion with the on how market forces influence news slanting and audience preferences. Shapiro's scholarly impact at culminated in his selection as a MacArthur Fellow in 2021, awarding $625,000 for innovative data-driven analyses of and policy design, awarded while he remained on the faculty. This recognition underscored his role in advancing evidence-based approaches to understanding institutional and behavioral influences in .

Appointment at

In 2024, Jesse M. Shapiro was appointed the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration at , a position he holds in the Entrepreneurial Management unit. This role builds on his prior education at Harvard, where he received a BA in economics in 2001 and a PhD in economics in 2005, facilitating integration of his expertise in applied microeconomics with business-oriented teaching and research. Shapiro's work at emphasizes the business implications of economic phenomena, including media markets, dynamics, and AI's influence on information flows and platforms. His applies structural models to analyze how these factors affect firm strategies, consumer behavior, and market competition, such as in and . He retains concurrent affiliations as a at the (NBER) and a at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), supporting ongoing empirical studies in . These roles enable continued examination of cross-country affective polarization trends, linking demographic shifts to electoral and policy outcomes.

Research Focus Areas

Media Bias and News Market Dynamics

Shapiro's research on emphasizes market incentives, particularly and competition, as primary drivers of content, challenging narratives of top-down ideological manipulation by media elites. In collaboration with Matthew Gentzkow, he developed a model where outlets slant coverage toward priors to establish and maintain a for accuracy, rather than reflecting journalists' personal ideologies. This theoretical framework posits that slanting builds trust only if aligned with verifiable facts over time, incentivizing outlets to cater to consumer demand for confirmation of beliefs. Empirically, Shapiro and Gentzkow tested these dynamics using textual analysis of U.S. newspapers from 1870 to 2004, constructing a slant index based on similarity to congressional language from readers' . They found that newspapers' word choice closely matches the of their local congressional representatives, evidence that slant responds to composition rather than preferences, as geographic variation in readership explains most observed bias. This approach, employing tools like support vector regression machines on millions of articles, demonstrated that discipline outlets toward consumer-aligned content, countering claims of detached elite control. Shapiro extended this to examine how special interests exploit reputational incentives. In a 2016 model applied to coverage, journalists facing uncertainty about policy-relevant facts avoid decisive reporting to preserve neutrality perceptions, instead relaying conflicting claims from interest groups. This "crowding out" effect occurs because balanced presentation of falsehoods dilutes truthful signals, with econometric analysis of coverage patterns showing causal impacts where special interests' access amplifies under competitive pressures for perceived objectivity. The framework highlights how demand for , rather than , enables distortion. On , Shapiro's work with Gentzkow and Michael Sinkinson analyzed over 1,900 U.S. entries and exits from 1868 to 2006, finding that boosts ideological diversity. Using structural estimates of and affiliation choice, they showed entrants often adopt opposing slants to underserved reader segments, increasing variety by up to 20% in competitive counties, as measured by partisan affiliation proxies. This evidence supports that entry barriers and exits reduce diversity, underscoring 's role in fostering a broader over homogenized elite narratives.

Political Polarization and Electoral Behavior

Shapiro and collaborators have documented trends in affective polarization, defined as the extent to which partisans view members of the opposing party with negative affect, across twelve OECD countries from the 1970s to the 2010s. Their analysis, using survey data on party sympathy and thermometer ratings, reveals that affective polarization increased most sharply in the United States, rising from near-neutral levels to substantial partisan animus, while three countries showed smaller increases and five experienced declines. This cross-national variation suggests country-specific drivers rather than universal forces like technological change, with U.S. trends accelerating prior to the widespread adoption of the internet and social media. Empirical evidence indicates that online platforms do not primarily drive polarization's acceleration. Demographic groups least exposed to and —such as older adults and rural residents—exhibited the fastest growth in polarization between 2000 and 2010, as measured by indices combining partisan identity strength, ideological consistency, and affective gaps. This pattern holds in analyses separating causal channels, where offline and social interactions appear to contribute more than digital exposure, challenging attributions of polarization to algorithmic amplification alone. In electoral behavior, Shapiro's recent work highlights the unreliability of demographic determinism in outcomes. models fitted to 1952–2020 U.S. presidential and congressional elections shows that projections assuming stable demographic partisanship—such as fixed or support for Democrats—systematically err, often by wide margins, due to volatile group-level voting patterns uncorrelated with population shifts. from validated voter files and surveys demonstrate that these instabilities arise from endogenous changes in preferences, not inexorable demographic tides, underscoring how elections evade deterministic predictions based on cohort replacement or trends.

Public Policy Design and Social Policy

Shapiro has developed frameworks for evaluating by incorporating microeconomic incentives into social issues, particularly through experimental that account for unobserved interference or spillovers among agents. In a 2020 working paper co-authored with multiple economists, he proposes methods for optimal in randomized experiments where interference is present but unknown, enabling researchers to derive welfare-maximizing allocations without assuming specific spillover structures. This approach leverages empirical data from field experiments to test interventions, such as resource allocations in networks, prioritizing causal identification of treatment effects amid realistic behavioral interactions over idealized assumptions of . Recent econometric tools advanced by address risks in communication, particularly in conveying from irregular estimators common in evaluations. In a January 2024 NBER working paper with Isaiah Andrews, he introduces bootstrap diagnostics for variance estimation in settings like instrumental variables or nonlinear models, improving the reliability of confidence intervals for -relevant parameters. Complementing this, their companion work on communicating scientific via approximate posteriors frames reporting as Bayesian updating, where researchers summarize posterior distributions on parameters to aid decision-makers in weighing without overconfidence in point estimates. These tools, grounded in first-principles of , facilitate verifiable assessments of impacts by highlighting empirical variability rather than deterministic claims. Shapiro applies these incentives-based frameworks to social policy challenges like online , advocating designs that target verifiable harms over subjective belief correction. In a February 2024 NBER paper with Scott Duke Kominers, they model platforms as intermediaries blocking sender signals to receivers, showing that opaque moderation policies—where rules are not fully disclosed—can enhance welfare by reducing harmful content without eroding trust, as transparent attempts to filter "false" beliefs may provoke skepticism and amplify . Empirical suggests prioritizing interventions against signals leading to tangible damage, such as incitement to violence, yields higher payoffs than broad suppression, aligning with causal from platform data on user responses to . This harm-reduction focus, tested through theoretical models informed by , counters incentives for over- driven by reputational pressures, as observed in news markets.

Other Contributions

Shapiro has made contributions to behavioral economics, including a collaborative study with Daniel J. Benjamin and Sean A. Brown that investigates the prevalence of anomalous preferences and their correlation with cognitive ability. Published in 2013, the research analyzes data from incentivized experiments and surveys, finding that apparent behavioral anomalies often reflect heterogeneity in cognitive skills rather than systematic deviations from rationality, thus questioning the boundaries of "behavioral" versus neoclassical economics. The study, appearing in the Journal of the European Economic Association, employs regression analyses on measures like IQ proxies and choice inconsistencies to estimate that cognitive ability accounts for much of the variation in observed preferences, informing debates on whether behavioral insights stem from bounded rationality or empirical artifacts. In methodological advancements, Shapiro co-authored work on enhancing transparency in structural econometrics, defining it as the ability to replicate a model's descriptive implications from its structural estimates without proprietary code or data. With Isaiah Andrews and Matthew Gentzkow, their 2020 framework, detailed in an NBER and published in the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, proposes checks like matching moments or distributions to detect misspecification and build trust in causal inferences. This approach has influenced NBER discussions on replicability, advocating for open reporting of estimation diagnostics to mitigate biases in complex models, as evidenced by extensions to bounds on parameters under shock restrictions.

Key Publications and Impact

Seminal Papers on Media Economics

Shapiro's foundational contributions to media economics include the 2006 paper "Media Bias and Reputation," co-authored with Matthew Gentzkow and published in the . The model posits that profit-maximizing media firms slant toward the prior beliefs of their target audiences to build a reputation for delivering high-quality, belief-consistent information, as audiences infer quality from alignment with their expectations under Bayesian updating. This framework explains observed bias as an equilibrium outcome of competition for consumer attention rather than exogenous distortion. A subsequent key work, "Competition and Truth in the Market for News" (2008, co-authored with Gentzkow and appearing in the Journal of Economic Perspectives), synthesizes economic theory with historical examples, such as 19th-century U.S. newspapers and radio deregulation, to evaluate competition's effects on news accuracy. The analysis concludes that market incentives generally discipline outlets toward factual reporting—since audiences punish verifiable inaccuracies—but can perpetuate ideological diversity if segmented demand favors slant over neutrality. Evidence from partisan competition in early American media, for instance, shows convergence on facts amid rivalry, challenging views of competition as inherently distorting. These papers, highly cited in subsequent literature (e.g., over 2,000 citations for the work per metrics as of 2023), reframed as demand-driven, prompting empirical studies to prioritize consumer preferences and reputational incentives over supply-side conspiracies in explaining slant. Their emphasis on verifiable reader demand as a check on falsehoods influenced discussions on media regulation, underscoring how fosters truth when audiences value accuracy.

Works on Polarization and Demographics

Shapiro co-authored "Cross-Country Trends in Affective Polarization," published in The Review of Economics and Statistics in 2024, which analyzes affective polarization—measured as the gap in average thermometer ratings of in-group and out-group partisans—across twelve OECD countries from the 1980s to the 2010s using survey data such as the American National Election Studies and Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. The study finds that affective polarization increased substantially in the United States, rising by approximately 0.2 standard deviations per decade, but showed no consistent upward trend elsewhere; six countries experienced declines, challenging models attributing polarization to universal drivers like social media or economic inequality without country-specific factors. This U.S. exceptionalism underscores empirical limits to extrapolating domestic trends to global predictions, as institutional differences, such as primary election systems, may amplify partisan animus domestically. In related work on demographics, Shapiro collaborated on "Pitfalls of Demographic Forecasts of US Elections," an NBER working paper from 2024 that backtests predictive models relying on demographic shifts—such as changes in racial, age, or education compositions—from U.S. presidential elections between 1952 and 2020. The analysis reveals systematic overprediction errors, with demographic models failing to capture parties' strategic adaptations, voter realignments uncorrelated with group sizes, and omitted variables like economic shocks; for instance, forecasts underestimated Republican performance in years of white voter consolidation despite predictable aging trends. These findings provide causal evidence, via historical simulations, against the inevitability of partisan dominance inferred from demographic momentum alone, as groups' voting behaviors exhibit volatility beyond compositional changes—evident in voters' swings exceeding 20 percentage points across elections. Shapiro's contributions counter narratives positing inexorable partisan shifts from observable trends, emphasizing instead the role of endogenous responses and unmodeled causal pathways in electoral dynamics. This mid-career emphasis on rigorous backtesting informs skepticism toward deterministic forecasts, highlighting how empirical anomalies in polarization and demographics reveal gaps in trend-based causal inference.

Policy-Relevant Research

Shapiro has examined how special interests distort media coverage of policy debates, with implications for regulatory oversight of advocacy spending. In his 2016 paper "Special Interests and the Media: Theory and an Application to Climate Change," published in the Journal of Public Economics, he presents a model where competing interest groups subsidize slanted news to sway consumer beliefs, leading to a crowd-out of objective reporting on issues like climate science. The analysis applies this framework to U.S. media data from 1989 to 2009, finding that increased spending by fossil fuel advocates correlated with diminished coverage of peer-reviewed climate findings, suggesting policy interventions such as disclosure requirements or limits on media subsidies could mitigate such distortions. More recently, Shapiro has addressed platform governance in the context of online . Collaborating with Scott Duke Kominers, his 2024 analysis argues that efforts to curb false beliefs directly—such as or de-amplification based on veracity—face inherent limits due to heterogeneous user priors and challenges. Instead, they advocate a harm-focused approach, prioritizing removal or restriction of content demonstrably linked to real-world harms like or , as evidenced by platform data showing that harm-based achieves higher compliance and welfare gains without the unverifiable claims of truth . This perspective, informed by economic models of information markets and platform incentives, recommends policies that tie liability to measurable outcomes rather than subjective accuracy judgments. Shapiro's contributions extend to methodological advancements enhancing transparency in policy evaluation econometrics. In ongoing work from 2024 onward, including tools like the xtevent package for linear panel event-study designs, he develops bootstrap diagnostics and visualization techniques to detect irregularities in causal estimates, such as heterogeneous treatment effects or pre-trends in policy impact studies. These methods, tested on datasets from labor and health interventions, promote replicability by flagging model misspecification early, thereby informing evidence-based governance with more robust inference on program efficacy.

Awards and Honors

MacArthur Fellowship

In September 2021, Jesse Shapiro was named a MacArthur Fellow as part of the class announced on September 28, receiving the award for his applied microeconomic research advancing comprehension of and ideological polarization through innovative empirical methods. These methods include novel techniques to quantify the impacts of slant and to examine how consumers choose and react to biased information sources. The fellowship citation specifically highlights Shapiro's development of new analytical frameworks for and design, as well as his use of field experiments to assess political effects and policy efficacy. The MacArthur Fellowship provides $625,000, disbursed as $125,000 annually over five years, with no stipulations on its use, enabling recipients to explore high-risk, high-reward ideas unconstrained by traditional funding requirements. This no-strings-attached support aligns with the foundation's aim to foster exceptional creativity and future potential across disciplines. Shapiro's inclusion in the 2021 cohort of 25 fellows, drawn from fields including , , and , emphasizes his contributions to empirical amid a broader recognition of diverse unconventional approaches to societal challenges.

Other Recognitions

Shapiro received the Brown University Presidential Faculty Award in 2016 for his scholarly achievements and teaching excellence. This honor included a public lecture on October 25, 2016, titled "How to Talk like a Republican, and Other Lessons from Using Text as Data," which explored methodological advances in analyzing political through economic lenses. He was elected a of the Econometric in 2017, recognizing his contributions to theoretical and empirical economics. Earlier, Shapiro held an Research Fellowship from 2011 to 2012, supporting early-career researchers demonstrating exceptional promise. Shapiro maintains ongoing affiliations that underscore his influence, including as a at the (CEPR) and a at the (NBER) since 2011. His research on has been referenced in policy discussions, such as analyses of how journalistic incentives may favor coverage aligned with special interests over public welfare.

Personal Life

Family and Background

Shapiro was raised in the area by parents involved in education: his mother, Joyce Shapiro, served as a teacher at in , while his father worked as a college counselor at in . In 2006, Shapiro married , an economist, professor, and author known for data-driven analyses of and , in a ceremony at the . The couple has two children.

Interests and Affiliations

Shapiro maintains key research affiliations that enable collaborative empirical investigations in economics. He has served as a at the (NBER) since 2011, previously as a Faculty Research Fellow from 2005 to 2011, participating in its programs on labor studies (since 2005), (since 2012), and (since 2013). Since 2020, he has been a member of the NBER Program's Steering Committee, directing collective empirical studies on economic and political interactions. These roles at NBER, an institution prioritizing nonpartisan, data-driven economic analysis, align with Shapiro's emphasis on rigorous through interdisciplinary researcher networks. Shapiro is also affiliated with the (CEPR), a European-based network promoting research via global collaborations. Earlier in his career, from 2005 to 2007, he held a Fellowship at the University of Chicago's Center on Chicago Price Theory, focusing on applying theoretical models to empirical questions in markets and incentives. Additionally, he engaged with as a Consulting Researcher (2015–2016) and Business Guest (2017), exploring intersections of and . These affiliations provide platforms for joint empirical projects that extend beyond academic silos, supporting advancements in and related fields.

References

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