Michael Spence

Andrew Michael Spence ( born November 7, 1943 in Montclair, New Jersey) is an American economist.

Life

In 2001 he received along with George A. Akerlof and Joseph E. Stiglitz, the Prize in Economic Sciences the Bank of Sweden in memory of Alfred Nobel for their work on the relationship between information and markets, in particular the adverse selection.

Spence is a professor at Harvard University ( Graduate School of Business ), before he was at Stanford University ( 1990-1999 ).

He is co-founder of the end of October 2009 founded the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET ) to develop new approaches for the economics.

In 2005 he received an honorary doctorate from the Graduate School of Management.

Work

Spence is the father of the so-called "Job Market Signaling" theory, which generally deals with the problem of asymmetric information in the labor market. In particular, it is important that the job (agent ) acquires special costly features which send relevant information about its capabilities, in the form of certificates ( signal) to the employer (principal). The employer can choose the information he obtained from the signal, the job seeker, the next best suits their needs. One example is the educational qualifications, indicate which job skills such as intelligence or special knowledge. It is not necessary that these qualifications have a value off the signal, ie, have an influence on intelligence or expertise.