Prior to receiving my alias, I had no idea who Peter Diamond was. I didn't even know he was an economist. But now that I do, here's a little bio about him.
Peter Diamond is an American Economist who is famous for his work regarding U.S. Social Security Policies. He also worked as an advisor to the Advisory Council on Social Security between 1980-1990.
Diamond is Jewish and was born in New York City. He attended Yale University receiving a Bachelor's in mathematics, followed by a Ph.D. from MIT. After going to school, he worked as a professor at UC Berkeley before going back to MIT to be a professor there. After 19 years, he was promoted to head of the econ department.
Peter Diamond has made many contributions to a variety of different areas including social insurance, labor markets, and government debt. But Diamond has focused most of his career on Social Security. Many times he has proposed policy adjustments, such as small increases in social security contributions using actuarial tables to adjust for changes in life expectancy and an increase in the proportion of earnings that are subject to taxation. Diamond's views have impressed people so much that President Obama nominated Diamond to fill the vacancy on the Federal Reserve Board. He rejected the offer though.
Peter Diamond's work is important because it relates to your everyday citizen. It applies to all of our lives. He analyzes social security and taxation, which is what we think about and deal with constantly. He's not just talking about money, but about our money, and people care a lot about that. His work is extremely important and he's very good at what he does, as shown by Obama's nomination.
I would say Diamond's work could be applied to our class because it was his paper that first explicitly modeled making trades and hiring workers, which results in equilibrium unemployment. In our class we're talking about organizations and human capital, and his work that deals with hiring is part of how you maximize human capital.
Peter Diamond seems like a very interesting economist, and from the looks of it has had a significant impact in the economic world.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2010/diamond-autobio.pdf
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704302304575213850582215096
You have the history of Diamond's nomination to the Fed a little bit wrong. Diamond's appointment was blocked in the Senate. You might want to read this essay by Diamond in the NY Times,, to understand better what happened.
ReplyDeleteAlso note that I've provided a clickable link to that essay rather than simply giving the url. You can do that too in your posts. The Editor has a link tool. I encourage you to use it. Readers like to track down references and that makes it easier on the reader.