Kevin M. Murphy
Senior Fellow

Expertise: Economic growth, income inequality, valuing medical research, rational addiction, and unemployment

Kevin M. Murphy is a Hoover Institution senior fellow and the George J. Stigler Professor of Economics in the Graduate School of Business and in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. He has been a member of the University of Chicago faculty since 1983.

He is the recipient of the 1997 John Bates Clark Medal of the American Economic Association, which is given once every two years to the most outstanding American economist under the age of forty. Murphy was cited for his study of the causes of growing income inequality between white-collar and blue-collar workers in the United States. His findings link the growth in income inequality to growth in the demand for skilled labor.

Murphy is the recipient of numerous other awards and fellowships, including a Sloan Foundation Fellowship and an Earhart Foundation Fellowship. He is a MacArthur Fellow. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society and the Society of Labor Economists, a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the author of more than fifty published articles.

Murphy's research has covered a wide range of topics including economic growth, income inequality, valuing medical research, rational addiction, and unemployment. His most recent research has focused on returns to education and skill, unemployment, human capital and growth, and income inequality. Articles about Murphy's research have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many local papers.

Murphy received a B.A. in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.