Erik Hurst is the Frank P. and Marianne R. Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is also currently serving as the Director of the University of Chicago’s Becker-Friedman Institute.

His work lies at the intersection of macroeconomics, labor economics and urban economics. In particular, his research has addressed topics such as declining male participation rates, the determinants of U.S. wage growth, the welfare losses to society stemming from gender and racial discrimination, the causes and consequences of urban gentrification, the economics of time use, small business dynamics, life-cycle consumption profiles, the role of housing and mortgage markets in driving macroeconomic conditions, and the choice to invest in human capital. Hurst’s research has been extensively covered in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist.

In 2006, Hurst was awarded the TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award for Outstanding Scholarly Writing on Lifelong Financial Security for the work examining how individuals use home production to maintain their consumption during retirement. In 2012, Hurst was also award the Ewing Marion Kauffman Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entrepreneurship. Hurst is both a member of the Econometrics Society and the American Academy of Arts and Science. He is a former co-editor of the Journal of Political Economy, the NBER Macro-Annual and the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Hurst earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from Clarkson University in 1993, a master’s degree in economics in 1995 from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in economics in 1999 from the University of Michigan. He became an IZA Research Fellow in April 2024.