Morris and Sally Kleiner Labor Economics Prize

Kleiner

Dr. Morris Kleiner and Sally Kleiner created the “Morris and Sally Kleiner Labor Economics Prize” to reward Ph.D. students for their outstanding scholarship in labor economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This award was first given in 2018.

Professor Morris Kleiner earned his PH.D. from the Department of Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1974. On August 29, 2016, he gave a seminar to economics students at the University of Illinois on his paper, “Analyzing the Influence of Occupational Licensing Duration on Labor Market Outcomes”. He has also written or helped write nine books, the most recent in 2022 is Grease or Grit: International Case Studies of Occupational Licensing and Its Effects on Efficiency and Quality with Maria Koumenta.

While working at the Brookings Institution and the U.S. Department of Labor in 1976 and 1977, Dr. Kleiner started researching occupational licensing. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and many foundations. He has advised the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, state legislatures, and occupation associations on occupation regulation policy. Internationally, he has provided testimony on occupational regulation to United Kingdom cabinet officers and their parliamentary committees, to cabinet officials responsible for regulation in Australia, to officials of the European Union, the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, and the World Health Organization.

Kleiner has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University and a visiting researcher in the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University. He has worked as a professor at the University of Kansas, an associate in employment policy at the Brookings Institution, a visiting scholar at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a visiting professor and research fellow at the London School of Economics, a visiting fellow at the Knee Center for the Study of Occupational Regulation at West Virginia University, and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Currently, he is on the faculty of the University of Minnesota where he is a professor and the AFL-CIO Chair in Labor Policy at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. He also teaches classes at the university's Center for Human Resources and Labor Studies. Further, he holds a position as a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is also a visiting scholar for the Economic Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Overall, Dr. Kleiner is a widely renowned and respected scholar.

Recipients

Year	Award Recipient
2023	Cristhian Molina Gonzalez The key question that Chistian Molina addresses in his research is how information about the quality of an institution of higher education affects students’ colleges choices, and to what extent a student’ choice where to enroll impacts that student’s future labor market outcomes. Christian uses a unique data set on college admission in Chile and connects it with another data set from the Chilean Ministry of Labor. This allows him to evaluate the social benefits of providing better information to students about different colleges and, in the case of Chile, the impact of stricter accreditation standards.

Year

Award Recipient

2023

Cristhian Molina Gonzalez

The key question that Chistian Molina addresses in his research is how information about the quality of an institution of higher education affects students’ colleges choices, and to what extent a student’ choice where to enroll impacts that student’s future labor market outcomes. Christian uses a unique data set on college admission in Chile and connects it with another data set from the Chilean Ministry of Labor. This allows him to evaluate the social benefits of providing better information to students about different colleges and, in the case of Chile, the impact of stricter accreditation standards.

Year	Award Recipient
2022	Eduardo Medina-Cortina Eduardo is a PhD candidate in Economics and a MSc student in applied statistics. His primary research fields are labor and migration economics. His current research focuses on improving measurements of the flows and stocks of the undocumented population in the United States, as well as the effect of US-based policies on current and future undocumented migration patterns.

Year

Award Recipient

2022

Eduardo Medina-Cortina

Eduardo is a PhD candidate in Economics and a MSc student in applied statistics. His primary research fields are labor and migration economics. His current research focuses on improving measurements of the flows and stocks of the undocumented population in the United States, as well as the effect of US-based policies on current and future undocumented migration patterns.

Year	Award Recipient
2021	Maria Noelia Romero Noelia’s current research focuses on how immigration affects the schools’ resources, the native’s academic performance, and the parents’ school choice. In particular, her research studies the recent Venezuelan immigration in Peru where the school market is similar to a free market for education because of its regulations. In previous research, Noelia studied the effect of the Venezuelan shock characterized by relatively high-skilled labor in Peru’s local labor market.

Year

Award Recipient

2021

Maria Noelia Romero

Noelia’s current research focuses on how immigration affects the schools’ resources, the native’s academic performance, and the parents’ school choice. In particular, her research studies the recent Venezuelan immigration in Peru where the school market is similar to a free market for education because of its regulations. In previous research, Noelia studied the effect of the Venezuelan shock characterized by relatively high-skilled labor in Peru’s local labor market.

Year	Award Recipient
2021	Jian Zou Jian’s current research investigates how students’ human capital accumulation is affected by their peers’ characteristics. In particular, one of Jian’s working papers is focused on the impacts of peers’ personality traits on students’ academic and noncognitive outcomes. Another project is on understanding the spillover of peers’ parental education. In the proposal awarded the prize, Jian has evaluated the impacts of a recent, nationwide, and high-stakes teacher licensing policy on teacher labor supply and student achievement in the US.

Year

Award Recipient

2021

Jian Zou

Jian’s current research investigates how students’ human capital accumulation is affected by their peers’ characteristics. In particular, one of Jian’s working papers is focused on the impacts of peers’ personality traits on students’ academic and noncognitive outcomes. Another project is on understanding the spillover of peers’ parental education. In the proposal awarded the prize, Jian has evaluated the impacts of a recent, nationwide, and high-stakes teacher licensing policy on teacher labor supply and student achievement in the US.

Year	Award Recipient
2019	Juan Munoz Morales Juan’s current research investigates how trade liberalization affects women and men differently in the labor market. In his previous research, published in the Journal of Development Economics, Juan shows that the perceived “Math gender gap” in Columbia can be largely explained by sample bias: Low performing male students tend to drop out of school, while lower performing female students remain, thus lowering the average test scores of female student.

Year

Award Recipient

2019

Juan Munoz Morales

Juan’s current research investigates how trade liberalization affects women and men differently in the labor market. In his previous research, published in the Journal of Development Economics, Juan shows that the perceived “Math gender gap” in Columbia can be largely explained by sample bias: Low performing male students tend to drop out of school, while lower performing female students remain, thus lowering the average test scores of female student.

Year	Award Recipient
2019	Andrea Atencio-De-Leon Andrea’s current research investigates the impact of outsourcing on the labor market. Specifically, her research links outsourcing to a decrease of hiring, firing, and worker reallocation in the U.S. labor market. In previous research, Andrea has investigated the gender wage gap using data from Armenia and Colombia.

Year

Award Recipient

2019

Andrea Atencio-De-Leon

Andrea’s current research investigates the impact of outsourcing on the labor market. Specifically, her research links outsourcing to a decrease of hiring, firing, and worker reallocation in the U.S. labor market. In previous research, Andrea has investigated the gender wage gap using data from Armenia and Colombia.

Year	Award Recipient
2018	Yuci Chen Yuci Chen’s current research focuses on investigating firm’s response to exogenous wage changes, in particular, she is interested in understanding to what extent do firms substitute between capital and labor.

Year

Award Recipient

2018

Yuci Chen

Yuci Chen’s current research focuses on investigating firm’s response to exogenous wage changes, in particular, she is interested in understanding to what extent do firms substitute between capital and labor.