Edward Paul Lazear, 1948–2020
Edward Paul Lazear, award-winning economist, public servant, and the Hoover Institution’s Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow, died Monday night. He was 72.
Lazear has been affiliated with the Hoover Institution and the Stanford community for over three decades. In 1985, Lazear joined the ranks of Hoover’s senior fellowship, and from 1992 to 2017 he was a professor of human resources and economics at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Since 2017, he has held the post of Davies Family Professor of Economics at Stanford. Prior to teaching at Stanford, Lazear served in various appointments at the University of Chicago School of Business.
Lazear was a popular teacher who inspired enthusiasm about economics in generations of students. He was also a bridge builder to fellow faculty members across the Stanford campus, and for over two decades energetically convened his colleagues to his colloquium, appropriately called “the Eddie lunch.”
Lazear’s career at Stanford was interrupted between 2006 and 2009 when he answered President George W. Bush’s call to government service as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. In this role, Lazear was central to crafting the federal government’s policy response to the global financial crisis of 2007–08.
“Ed was a pioneering labor economist, a gifted teacher, an accomplished public servant and an extraordinary colleague,” said Condoleezza Rice, director of the Hoover Institution.
Lazear was the founding editor of the Journal of Labor Economics. In 1996, he devised the concept and bylaws for the Society of Labor Economics (SOLE), and later became SOLE’s president. Earlier this year, in September, the organization named an award in Lazear’s honor for individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of labor economics, devoted a portion of their careers for the benefit of civil society, and actively helped shape public policy.
Lazear has written several books, including Personnel Economics (MIT Press, 1995). He also has been the recipient of numerous prizes, including the 1998 Leo Melamed Biennial Prize for the best research by a business school professor, the 2004 Prize for Outstanding Contributions to Labor Economics from the Institute for the Study of Labor, the 2006 Jacob Mincer Prize for lifetime achievement in the field of labor economics, the 1994 Distinguished Teaching Award from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, and the 2002 Distinguished Service Award from Stanford University.
For years, Lazear was known for his regular pithy commentary on television news shows, including CNBC’s Squawk Box, and he has most recently provided deep insights about the US economy during the course of the COVID-19 public health crisis. In a May 14 op-ed for the Washington Post, he underscored how lockdown policies resulting from the pandemic have disproportionately impacted America’s youths, minorities, and least educated persons.
Lazear wrote, “We cannot ignore that most of the costs are being borne by our children and grandchildren, particularly the poorest among them.”
Earlier this year Lazear, in collaboration with Robert Wesson Senior Fellow Scott Atlas, launched Socialism and Free-Market Capitalism: The Human Prosperity Project. The initiative, which produced several essays, presentations, and media authored by Hoover fellows, is geared toward informing audiences about the arguments and legacies of the world’s dominant and fiercely debated economic systems. Lazear was also very active on Hoover’s educational platform, PolicyEd. Lazear’s research was featured in the PolicyEd series Examining America’s Exceptional Economy, in which he demonstrated that America and its people have prospered by prioritizing economic freedom, industriousness, low taxes, light regulation, free trade, and openness to immigration. His recent video about immigration reform for the Perspectives on Policy series was viewed by users more than half a million times.
Lazear is survived by his wife, Victoria, his daughter, Julie, and his son-in-law, Dustin.
Update: December 3, 2020
The Hoover Institution is pleased to announce that a new senior fellowship in economics has been endowed in honor of Lazear, made possible by the generosity of Hoover overseer David G. Booth.
The “Booth Derbas Family/Edward Lazear Senior Fellowship” is named for Booth’s daughter Erin Booth and son-in-law Khalid Derbas, alumni of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and in tribute to the outstanding scholarship, distinguished career, and personal qualities of our beloved colleague.
