Enrico Moretti
Professor | Haas School of Business & Department of Economics |University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA, UNITED STATES
Expert on urban economics and labor economics
Areas of Expertise (3)
Labor Economics
Urban Economics
The Economics of Cities and Regions
About
Enrico Moretti is the Michael Peevey and Donald Vial Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He serves as the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Economic Perspectives and is a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. He is also Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge), Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London) and the Institute for the Study of Labor (Bonn).
Professor Moretti’s 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. His book, “The New Geography of Jobs”, has been translated in seven languages and was awarded the William Bowen Prize for the most important contribution toward understanding public policy and the labor market.
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Education (2)
University of California, Berkeley: PhD, Economics
Bocconi University, Milano, Italy: Laurea, Economics
Links (3)
Honors & Awards (10)
Best Paper Prize – American Economic Journal, Applied Economics for the paper “Real Wage Inequality”
2015
Sherwin Rosen Prize for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Labor Economics, awarded by the Society of Labor Economists
2014
Fellow, Society of Labor Economists
2014
William Bowen Prize, awarded by Princeton University Industrial Relations Section to the book making the most important contribution toward understanding public policy and the labor market
2013
Carlo Alberto Medal, awarded to an Italian economist under the age of 40 for his/her outstanding research contributions to the field of economics
2008
IZA Young Labor Economist Award, for an outstanding paper published in labor economics by a researcher younger than 40
2006
Alfred P. Sloan Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship
1999
Fulbright Fellowship
1994
Scholarship for Best Undergraduate Thesis, Lombardia Regional Council, Italy
1993
Best Undergraduate Thesis in Public Economics, CIRIEC, Milano, Italy
1993
Positions Held (1)
At Haas since 2016
2016 – Present, Professor, Real Estate Group, Haas School of Business 2016 – Present, Research Affiliate, International Growth Centre, London 2015 – Present, Editor in Chief, Journal of Economic Perspectives 2008 – Present, Michael Peevey and Donald Vial Professor of Economics, Department of Economics 2008 – Present, Visiting Scholar, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco 2008 – Present, Honorary Fellow, Collegio Carlo Alberto, Torino, Italy 2007 – Present, Senior Fellow, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, Italy 2005 – Present, Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge 2004 – Present, Research Fellow, Centre for Economic Policy Research, London 2004 – Present, Research Fellow, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn 2015-2016 Vic Trione Visiting Professor of Economics, Stanford University 2008 – 2014, Director, Urbanization Program, International Growth Centre, London School of Economics, London 2013 Consultant, World Bank Oct 2011, Visitor, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University 2010 – 2011, Vic Trione Visiting Professor of Economics, Stanford University 2004 – 2008, Associate Professor (with tenure), Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley 2000 – 2004, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, UCLA 2002 Visiting Scholar, Columbia Business School 2002 – 2005, Faculty Research Fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge 1993 – 1994, Social Worker, City of Cassano Magnago, Italy
Media Appearances (15)
The Winners of Remote Work
The New York Times online
2021-08-31
For in-demand professionals, working remotely means competing for the highest-paying jobs with a larger number of companies. According to “The New Geography of Jobs," research by Prof. Enrico Moretti, hiring “is very similar to dating: access to more potential candidates in a bigger pool of people increases the chance of finding an ideal match.
How to Ensure the ‘Endless Frontier’ Won’t Be a Bottomless Pit
Bloomberg online
2021-04-23
Dispersing federal money to all corners of the U.S. may be good social policy, and it’s definitely good politics because it guarantees that more senators and representatives will support the legislation. But it may not be the best way to win a tech war, the writer argues. Economics Prof. Enrico Moretti, author of the 2012 book The New Geography of Jobs, told James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute, “If you look at the history of the innovation hubs in the U.S. it’s hard to find examples where an innovation hub was explicitly created by a deliberate policy on the part of the county or state saying, ‘We’re going to create the next Silicon Valley, there.’"
Biden’s innovative idea for tackling skyrocketing housing prices
Vox online
2021-04-08
Buried in Pres. Biden's infrastructure plan is a provision to end exclusionary zoning. According to research co-authored by Prof. Enrico Moretti, metropolitan areas have made it prohibitively expensive for middle- and low-income Americans to move to high-productivity areas. That's caused U.S. aggregate economic growth to dip by more than 50% from 1964 to 2009.
A new study assesses whether inheritance taxes boost net revenues
The Economist online
2019-11-30
A new study by Enrico Moretti of the University of California, Berkeley and Daniel Wilson of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco suggests that state governments can reap gains from estate taxes, even though they are easy to avoid.
How to Get a Better Deal From a Real Estate Agent
The New York Times online
2019-10-24
Commissions paid to realtors for selling a home appear to be stuck at an inefficiently high rate, according to a study by the economists Enrico Moretti, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and Chang-Tai Hsieh, a professor at the University of Chicago.
Estate Tax Can Pay Off for States, Even if the Superrich Flee
The New York Times online
2019-10-20
Research by Enrico Moretti of the University of California, Berkeley, and Daniel J. Wilson of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found that even the though rich can move to avoid estate taxes, the payout for states that impose them is still large.
Interview with Enrico Moretti
Econ Focus (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond) online
First Quarter, 2019 Geographic differences in economic well-being, it seems, have become increasingly salient in American policy and political conversation. These differences are a longtime concern of University of California, Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti.
How Smaller Cities Are Trying to Plug America's Brain Drain
WIRED online
2019-08-12
This has led to what UC Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti calls “America’s great divergence”: A handful of cities attract the bulk of high-paying jobs, increasing the economic disparity between those who work in these cities and those who do not. Moretti says the trend is the result of what economists call “agglomeration benefits.” When a bunch of skilled workers and firms in a similar industry are located near one another, it’s easier to find specialists, knowledge tends to spill over from one firm to another, and firms see higher rates of innovation and productivity...
The Benefits of High-Tech Job Growth Don’t Trickle Down
CityLab online
2019-08-08
In The New Geography of Jobs, economist Enrico Moretti argues that every high-tech job has a multiplier effect of an additional five jobs, spurring a virtuous cycle of economic development and employment growth...
Why New York City Made a Big Mistake Saying 'No' to Amazon
The National Interest online
2019-08-02
Just how much did that backlash cost NYC. Here is economist Enrico Moretti, author of “The New Geography of Jobs,” in a fantastic interview with the Richmond Fed...
To Fix Its Housing Crunch, One U.S. City Takes Aim at the Single-Family Home
Bloomberg online
2019-07-31
Academics have started to quantify the costs that local restrictions on land use can inflict nationwide. In a recent paper, Chang-Tai Hsieh, of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, and Enrico Moretti, at the University of California at Berkeley, argued that barriers to building more homes in New York, San Francisco, and San Jose lowered U.S. economic growth by 36% from 1964 to 2009. Impediments to housing supply in these highly productive places effectively kept Americans from making an additional $3,685 per person per year by 2009, they found...
America’s Dual Housing Crisis and What Democrats Plan to Do About It, Explained
Vox online
2019-07-30
But if it were economically feasible for more people to move to the highest wage areas, economists Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti calculated that national economic output would rise 9.5 percent. The fact that the most expensive parts of the country also generally have the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per capita is another reason to regret that more people don’t live in those places...
Tech Companies Say it's Too Hard to Hire High-Skilled Immigrants in the U.S. — So They're Growing in Canada Instead
Time Magazine online
2019-07-25
The innovation economy creates jobs outside of tech, too. Research by the Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti suggests that every high-paying tech job created in an economy results in five more openings, including positions like lawyers, nurses, and hairdressers...
Does Focusing on Manufacturing Make Sense for the US?
Bloomberg online
2019-06-20
And third, manufactured goods are easy to export, which helps not just the country but also the cities where the products are made. Economist Enrico Moretti found that every high-skilled manufacturing job in a city generates about 2.5 jobs in the nontradable sector (retail, construction and so on) in that same city...
Does New York Still Have a Future in Tech?
The New York Times online
2019-02-20
Amazon’s decision on Feb. 14 to cancel its plans in New York City was actually the second time that New York missed its chance to host Amazon headquarters. The first time was in 1994, and what happened then informs what might happen next...
Working Papers (10)
The Effect of High-Tech Clusters on the Productivity of Top Inventors,
Enrico Moretti
August 2019
Taxing Billionaires: Estate Taxes and the Geographical Location of the Forbes 400
Enrico Moretti, Daniel J. Wilson
April 2019
Wage Equalization and Regional Misallocation: Evidence from Italian and German Provinces
Tito Boeri, Andrea Ichino, Enrico Moretti, Johanna Posch
February 2019
Estimating Who Benefits From Productivity Growth: Direct and Indirect Effects of City Manufacturing TFP Growth on Wages, Rents, and Inequality
Richard Hornbeck, Enrico Moretti
January 2019
Matching in Cities
Wolfgang Dauth, Sebastian Findeisen, Enrico Moretti, Jens Suedekum
2019
The Geography of Consumption Inequality
Enrico Moretti, R. Diamond
2019
Agglomeration of Urban Amenities: Evidence from Milano Restaurants
Enrico Moretti, M. Leonardi
2019
The World’s Rust Belts
Enrico Moretti, L. Gagliardi, M. Serafinelli
2019
The Intellectual Spoils of War? Defense R&D, Productivity and Spillovers
Enrico Moretti, Claudia Steinwender, John Van Reenen
2019
Bidding for Industrial Plants: Does Winning a ’Million Dollar Plant’ Increase Welfare?
Michael Greenstone, Enrico Moretti
2004
Selected Research Grants (24)
Grant
Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics
2016 - 2018
Grant
NBER Innovation Policy
2015 - 2016
Research Grant
Microsoft
2013 - 2014
Grant
Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics
2013 - 2014
Grant
NBER Innovation Policy
2011 - 2012
Research Grant
Microsoft
2011 - 2012
Policy Research Grant
Upjohn Institute
2011 - 2012
Grant
Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics
2010 - 2011
Research Grant
Equitable Growth Center
2010 - 2013
UK Center for Poverty Research
Regional Grant
2009 - 2010
Pilot Grant
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and BPC
2008 - 2009
Grant
Labor and Employment Research Fund
2007 - 2008
Grant
National Institute of Health (with J. Currie and M. Greenstone)
2007 - 2009
Grant
Coleman Fung Risk Management (with U. Malmendier)
2006 - 2007
Grant
Labor and Employment Research Fund (with A. Mas)
2006 - 2007
Research Grant
Center for Health
2006 - 2007
Grant
UC Berkeley Council on Research
2004 - 2010
Grant
CEDA
2005 - 2006
Research Grant
Center for Health
2005 - 2006
NBER Fellowship for the Study of Nonprofit Institutions
(With D. Card)
2004 - 2005
Grant (with J. Currie)
National Science Foundation
2003 - 2007
Grant (with D. Lee)
National Science Foundation
2002 - 2006
Grant (with M. Neidell)
California Center for Population Research
2003 - 2004
Grant
UCLA Academic Senate
2000 - 2004
Selected Papers & Publications (54)
The Effect of High-Tech Clusters on the Productivity of Top Inventors
Berkeley, NBER, CEPR
Enrico Moretti
August 2019
Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
Enrico Moretti, Chang-Tai Hsieh
2019
Winning by Losing: Evidence on Overbidding in Mergers
The Review of Financial Studies
Enrico Moretti, Ulrike Malmendier
2018
The Effect of State Taxes on the Geographical Location of Top Earners: Evidence from Star Scientists
American Economic Review
Enrico Moretti, Daniel Wilson
2017
Estimating and Testing Models with Many Treatment Levels and Limited Instruments
The Review of Economics and Statistics
Lance Lochner, Enrico Moretti
2015
Are Cities the New Growth Escalator?
in ”The Urban Imperative: Towards Competitive Cities”
Enrico Moretti
2015
Local Economic Development, Agglomeration Economies and the Big Push: 100 Years of Evidence from the Tennessee Valley Authority
Quarterly Journal of Economics
Patrick Kline, Enrico Moretti
2014
People, Places and Public Policy: Some Simple Welfare Economics of Local Economic Development Programs
Annual Review of Economics
Patrick Kline, Enrico Moretti
2014
State Incentives for Innovation, Star Scientists and Jobs: Evidence from Biotech
The Journal of Urban Economics
Enrico Moretti, Daniel J. Wilson
2013
Place Based Policies with Unemployment
American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings
Patrick Kline, Enrico Moretti
2013
Local Multipliers and Human Capital in the US and Sweden
Industrial and Corporate Change
Enrico Moretti, Per Thulin
2013
Inequality at Work: the Effect of Peer Salaries on Job Satisfaction
American Economic Review
David Card, Alexandre Mas, Enrico Moretti, Emmanuel Saez
2012
Local Labor Markets
Handbook of Labor Economics
Enrico Moretti
2011
Social Learning and Peer Effects in Consumption: Evidence from Movie Sales
Review of Economic Studies
Enrico Moretti
2011
Superfund Cleanups and Infant Health
American Economic Review
Janet Currie, Michael Greenstone, Enrico Moretti
2011
Identifying Agglomeration Spillovers: Evidence from Winners and Losers of Large Plant Openings
Journal of Political Economy
Michael Greenstone, Richard Hornbeck, Enrico Moretti
2010
The Geography of Giving: The Effect of Corporate Headquarters on Local Charities
Journal of Public Economics
David Card, Kevin F. Hallock, Enrico Moretti
2010
The Political Economy of Intergenerational Income Mobility
Economic Inquiry
Andrea Ichino, Loukas Karabarbounis, Enrico Moretti
2011
The Effects of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
Janet Currie, Stefano DellaVigna, Enrico Moretti, Vikram Pathania
2010
Pollution, Health, and Avoidance Behavior: Evidence from the Ports of Los Angeles
Journal of Human Resources
Enrico Moretti, Matthew Neidell
2011
Biological Gender Differences, Absenteeism and the Earning Gap
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
Andrea Ichino, Enrico Moretti
2019
Bayesian Learning and the Pricing of New Information: Evidence from Prediction Markets
American Economic Review
David S. Lee, Enrico Moretti
2009
Racial Bias in the 2008 Presidential Election
American Economic Review
Alexandre Mas, Enrico Moretti
2009
Extreme Weather Events, Mortality and Migration
Review of Economics and Statistics
Olivier Deschenes, Enrico Moretti
2009
Biology As Destiny? Short and Long-Run Determinants of Intergenerational Transmission of Birth Weight
Journal of Labor Economics
Janet Currie, Enrico Moretti
2007
Did Iraq Cheat the United Nations? Underpricing, Bribes, and the Oil for Food Program
Quarterly Journal of Economics
Chang-Tai Hsieh, Enrico Moretti
2006
Why do Most Italian Youths Live with Their Parents? Intergenerational Transfers and Household Structure
Journal of the European Economic Association
Marco Manacorda, Enrico Moretti
2006
The Dynamics of Criminal Behavior
Journal of Human Resources
Brian Jacob, Lars Lefgren, Enrico Moretti
2007
Does Voting Technology Affect Election Outcomes? Touch-screen Voting and the 2004 Presidential Elections
Review of Economics and Statistics
David Card, Enrico Moretti
2007
Does Managed Care Hurt Health? Evidence from Medicaid Mothers
Review of Economics and Statistics
Anna Aizer, Janet Currie, Enrico Moretti
2007
Do Microfinance Programs Help Families Insure Consumption Against Illness?
Health Economics
Paul Gertler, David Levine, Enrico Moretti
2009
Is Social Capital the Capital of the Poor? The Role of Family and Community in Helping Insure Living Standards Against Health Shocks
CESifo Economic Studies
Paul Gertler, David I. Levine, Enrico Moretti
2006
Crime and the Costs of Criminal Justice
In ”The Price We Pay: Economic and Social Consequences of Inadequate Education”
2007
Did the Introduction of Food Stamps Affect Birth Outcomes in California?
In ”Making Americans Healthier”
Enrico Moretti
2008
Workers’ Education, Spillovers and Productivity: Evidence from Plant-Level Production Functions
American Economic Review
Enrico Moretti
2004
The Effect of Education on Criminal Activity: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests and Self-Reports
American Economic Review
Lance Lochner, Enrico Moretti
2004
Estimating the Social Return to Higher Education: Evidence From Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Data
Journal of Econometrics
Enrico Moretti
2004
Do Voters Affect or Elect Policies? Evidence from the U.S. House
Quarterly Journal of Economics
David S. Lee, Enrico Moretti, Matthew J. Butler
2004
Does Education Improve Citizenship? Evidence from the U.S. and the U.K.
Journal of Public Economics
Kevin Milligan, Enrico Moretti, Philip Oreopoulos
2006
Human Capital Externalities in Cities
Handbook of Urban and Regional Economics
Enrico Moretti
2004
A Small Sample Estimator For Sample Selection
Econometric Reviews
Amos Golan, E. Horstman Moretti, Jeffrey M. Perloff
2004
Can Free Entry Be Inefficient? Fixed Commission and Social Waste in the Real Estate Industry
Journal of Political Economy
Chang-Tai Hsieh, Enrico Moretti
2003
Mother’s Education and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from College Openings
Quarterly Journal of Economics
Janet Currie, Enrico Moretti
2003
Efficiency Wages and Deferred Payments in Agriculture
American Journal of Agricultural Economics
Enrico Moretti, Jeffrey M. Perloff
2002
Do Wages Compensate for Risk of Unemployment? Parametric and Semiparametric Evidence from Seasonal Jobs
Journal of Risk and Uncertainty
Enrico Moretti
2000
Use of Public Transfer Programs and Private Aid by Farm Workers
Industrial Relations
Enrico Moretti, Jeffrey M. Perloff
2000
Migrations and Social Networks: Italy 1889-1913
International Migration Review
Enrico Moretti
1999
An Information Based Sample Selection Model of Agricultural Workers’ Choice Between Piece Rate and Hourly Work
American Journal of Agricultural Economics
Amos Golan, Enrico Moretti, Jeffrey M. Perloff
1999
Optimal Environmental Policies Under Uncertainty and Irreversibility
Giornale degli Economisti (in Italian)
Enrico Moretti
1993
Social