Stephen J. Davis
Steven J. Davis is an applied economist with research publications on employment and wage behavior, worker mobility, job loss, the effects of labor market institutions, business dynamics, industrial organization, economic fluctuations, national economic performance, public policy and other topics. In addition to a basic understanding of the big macroeconomic issues, Davis hopes his students learn "an informed skepticism about data and economic argumentation and an analytical approach that they can apply to business and economic problems in their careers."
Davis is former editor of the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. He is also a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, an economic adviser to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and a nonresident visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Previously, he held positions at the National University of Singapore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Milken Institute for Job and Capital Formation, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. During a leave of absence, he was vice president in the Competition Practice at CRA International, an economics consulting firm. "This practical experience taught me that there is a market for analytical thinking skills, the hallmark of a Chicago Booth education," he said.
His research has been supported by grants from the Kauffman Foundation, the World Economic Forum, the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Labor, and several other organizations.
In addition to publication in numerous academic journals, Davis has published in the Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and other popular media. He has made television appearances on CNBC, Fox News Channel, NBC News, and PBS, among others. He has also appeared on various radio shows.
As a young man interested in economic, political, and social issues, Davis concluded that economics offered a powerful set of tools for understanding economic and social behavior. He pursued graduate studies in economics with the intention of "learning how to think." Davis earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Portland State University in Oregon in 1980, and a master's degree in 1981 and a PhD in 1986, both in economics from Brown University. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 1985.
Kathryn Shaw
Kathryn Shaw is the Ernest C. Arbuckle Professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. Previously, Shaw was the Ford Distinguished Research Chair and professor of economics at the business school at Carnegie Mellon University. She completed her PhD in economics at Harvard University in 1981. Professor Shaw served as a Senate-confirmed member of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers (1999–2001) and is an editor of the Journal of Labor Economics.
In work that has been published in the American Economic Review and Management Science, she and her colleagues evaluate the effectiveness of complementary teamwork practices in the steel industry. Recently, she has turned to studying the performance gains from new information technologies and the changes in management strategy towards product customization that enhance returns to investment. In related work on incentives in franchising, she shows how the optimal use of franchise contracts can increase brand value for franchise companies. Her research has been extensively funded by the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Russell Sage and Rockefeller Foundations, and the U.S. Department of Labor.
In 2001, Shaw received the Columbia University award for the best paper on international business, and in 1998 she was honored as the recipient of the Minnesota Award for Employment Research for the best paper in 1997–98 on the topic of employment issues. She held a Stanford Graduate School of Business Trust Faculty Fellow in 2005–06. She has been the recipient of the Xerox Research Chair, has served on a Research Panel of the NSF, and is an editor of the Review of Economics and Statistics. At Carnegie Mellon University, Shaw received the Award for Sustained Teaching Excellence, the Economics Department Teaching Award and was chair of the Faculty Senate and head of the Department of Industrial Management.