Charles F. Manski

Charles F. Manski, Ph.D. is an economist.

Charles Frederick Manski, Professor of Economics at Northwestern University, is an econometrician in the realm of Rational choice theory, an innovator in the arena of "identification." Manski’s research spans econometrics, judgement and decision, and the analysis of social policy (such as work on "School choice"). A specialist in prediction and decision, he is known within the economics field for landmark work on “partial identification,” identification of discrete choice models, and identification of social interactions. He has also performed substantial empirical research on measurement of expectations in surveys.

Academic Career
Born in 1948, Charles Manski received his B.S. and Ph.D. in economics from MIT in 1970 and 1973. He first taught at Carnegie Mellon University (1973-80), moving on to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1979-83), and joining the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison (U.W., 1983-98). While at the U.W., Manski served as Director of the Institute for Research on Poverty (1988-91) and as Chair of the Board of Overseers of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1994-98). Since 1997 Manski has been Board of Trustees Professor in Economics at Northwestern University.

Manski has served as a member of the National Research Council's (NRC) Committee on National Statistics (1996-2000), and the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (1992-98). At the NRC, he has been Chair of the Committee on Data and Research for Policy on Illegal Drugs (1998-2001) and a member of the Board on Mathematical Sciences and their Applications (2004-2007) and the Committee on Law and Justice (2009-). Manski is an elected fellow of the Econometric Society, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2009, Manski was elected to the National Academy of Sciences; he is one of 2 economists elected to the body in 2009, and one of about 60 economists elected up to that point.

As of 2007 Manski's research interests focus primarily on the field of formation of social policy with partial knowledge of treatment response. Economists and doctors alike share a common interest in gauging the effect of various "treatments" delivered to "patients." Since research on treatment response rarely provides sufficient information to determine effectiveness, how should the available evidence be employed in choosing future treatments?

Research findings in the media
The NRC's Committee on Data and Research for Policy on Illegal Drugs found that existing studies on efforts to address drug usage and smuggling, from U.S. military operations to eradicate coca fields in Colombia, to domestic drug treatment centers, have all been inconclusive, if the programs have been evaluated at all: “The existing drug-use monitoring systems are strikingly inadequate to support the full range of policy decisions that the nation must make...It is unconscionable for this country to continue to carry out a public policy of this magnitude and cost without any way of knowing whether and to what extent it is having the desired effect.” The study, though not ignored by the press, was initially ignored by policymakers, leading Manski to conclude, as one observer noted, that "the drug war has no interest in its own results."

More recently, in 2004, Manski challenged the theoretical basis for statements in the popular media "that markets can predict an election better than polls and experts can."