Enrico Moretti


Enrico Moretti is an Italian-born American economist and the Michael Peevey and Donald Vial Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research and the Institute for the Study of Labor. His research covers the fields of labor economics and urban economics.  He has received several awards and honors, including the Society of Labor Economists’ Rosen Prize for outstanding contributions to labor economics, the Carlo Alberto Medal, the IZA Young Labor Economist Award and a Fulbright Fellowship.
Along with over 60 articles in peer-reviewed economics journals, Moretti's 2012 book for general audiences, The New Geography of Jobs, has received widespread attention. The book was described by Barack Obama in 2019 as “a timely and smart discussion of how different cities and regions have made a changing economy work for them — and how policymakers can learn from that to lift the circumstances of working Americans everywhere." In 2018, it was described by  Paul Krugman in The New York Times  as “a must reading for anyone trying to understand the state of America” and by William Galston in The Wall Street Journal as  “the most important book of the decade on the contemporary economy." The book has been translated in eight languages and was awarded the William Bowen Prize by Princeton University for the most important contribution toward understanding public policy and the labor market.
Moretti’s research focuses on the growing  geographic differences in economic well-being between cities. In his research, he has found that the sorting of highly educated Americans — and high-paying jobs requiring a lot of education — into certain communities has led to other communities falling behind. Moreover, they've been falling behind faster economically as time goes on. This pattern, in turn, has been reflected in other socioeconomic differences, including political attitudes, divorce rates and life expectancies.
In addition to his work in labor economics and economic geography, Moretti has published peer-reviewed articles on the social returns to education; social interactions and peer effects; health economics;  political economy; and the economics of the family.

Notable Journal Articles