Susan C. Athey
Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Analysis Group Contact
Martha S. Samuelson
Education:
Ph.D., economics, Stanford University; B.A., economics, mathematics and computer science, Duke University
Summary of Experience:
Susan C. Athey is the first female recipient of the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark Medal, which is awarded every other year to the most accomplished American economist under the age of 40. Professor Athey received the award in 2007.
Professor Athey is an established expert in several fields of economics, including industrial organization, econometrics, microeconomic theory, and auctions. She has, for example, analyzed the effects of factors such as information access in cartels, and has studied collusion in the context of open versus sealed bid auction settings. Professor Athey also has consulted to several governments to help them establish protocols for auctioning public resources; notably, she consulted with the government of British Columbia on the design of timber auctions that have since generated more than $1 billion in annual revenue.
Professor Athey is an expert in game theory, where her research has examined firm strategy when firms have private information. She also has applied her expertise in the statistical analysis of economic behavior to problems across the wide-ranging scope of her work.
Published widely in peer-reviewed literature, Professor Athey is the co-editor of American Economic Journals: Microeconomics, published by the AEA, and associate editor for Econometrica, Theoretical Economics, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. She has been an associate editor or co-editor of the American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy and the RAND Journal of Economics, and is a former member of the National Science Foundation economics panel. Professor Athey has recently been elected to the Council of the Econometric Society, and to the Executive Committee of the American Economic Association.