Orley Ashenfelter, Princeton's Joseph Douglas Green 1895 Professor of Economics, has been named a distinguished fellow by the American Economic Association, an honor bestowed each year upon no more than three economists in the United States and Canada.
Ashenfelter was cited for his influential research in labor economics, his service to the profession and his mentoring of outstanding graduate students. He was recognized along with Lloyd Shapley, a Princeton graduate alumnus and a professor emeritus of economics and mathematics at the University of California-Los Angeles, and Oliver Williamson, a professor emeritus of economics and business at the University of California-Berkeley.
Ashenfelter has been a faculty member at Princeton since 1968 and also earned his Ph.D. from the University. He is known for developing the "natural experiment" method that has become the standard in studying social programs and various topics in economics and other fields. He has received numerous honors for his work, including the Society of Labor Economists' Jacob Mincer Prize for lifetime achievements and the prestigious IZA Prize in Labor Economics from Germany's Institute for the Study of Labor.
