John A. List

About John A. List

John August List (born September 25, 1968) is an American economist known for his work in establishing field experiments as a tool in empirical economic analysis. Since 2016, he has served as the Kenneth C. Griffin Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he was Chairman of the Department of Economics from 2012 to 2018, and Director of the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics since 2025. Since 2016, he has also served as Visiting Robert F. Hartsook Chair in Fundraising at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. In 2011, List was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2011, he was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society. In 2024, Omicron Delta Epsilon, the international honor society for economics, gave List the biennial John R. Commons Award. List is noted for his pioneering contributions to field experimentation in economics, with Nobel laureate economist George Akerlof and noted law professor Cass Sunstein writing that "List has done more than anyone else to advance the methods and practice of field experiments." Nobel laureate economist Gary Becker quipped that "John List's work