Ph.D. Adviser Receives Prestigious Economics Award

David Card, the Ph.D. adviser of NSU Professor of Decision Sciences Florence Neymotin, was recently announced as a winner of the 2021 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel – commonly called the Nobel Prize in economics. Card pioneered a “credibility revolution” in economics by using empirical data to rigorously test theoretical predictions. He used data from natural experiments and sophisticated statistical tools to better understand the impact of minimum wage policies, immigration, and education. For example, in the early 1990s, he showed that raising the minimum wage in New Jersey did not lead to an increase in unemployment, using nearby western Pennsylvania as the control group. In contrast with the predominantly theoretical analyses of the past, the majority of economics research published today is based on observational or econometric data due to his successes.

Neymotin maintains a close relationship with Card. As a graduate student, she was acknowledged for her research work on two of his foundational papers. In “Is the New Immigration Really So Bad?” they discovered that, contrary to what some had feared, the presence of immigrants did not adversely impact the labor market opportunities for natives. Neymotin was also acknowledged on his paper published in The American Economic Review, a top-5 journal in economics titled “The Impact of Nearly Universal Insurance Coverage on Healthcare Utilization: Evidence from Medicare.”

Neymotin, currently in the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship, said about her role in the process: “I could not be happier to see this important work recognized and to have played a part in making economics a more rigorous science.”

She says she hopes to continue making progress in her own research using the tools of empirical economics she learned from Card. In particular, Neymotin uses data-driven approaches to better understand entrepreneur and employment decisions, as well as changes in the health care system.