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Research Programs

The Cowles Foundation provides support for research and research related activities through seven core Research Program Areas: Algorithms, Data, and Market DesignEconometricsEconomic TheoryIndustrial OrganizationInternational TradeLabor and Public Economics; and Macroeconomics. Each of these broad areas has deep ties to the Cowles tradition and provides a foundation for other fields of inquiry in economics and related fields.

Cowles Program Areas sponsor visiting faculty and post-docs, organize conferences, and provide other research resources at Yale.

Algorithms, Data, and Market Design
In fall 2022, Yale launched a new program to support new undergraduate course offerings and interdisciplinary research at the intersection of Computer Science, Data Science and Economics.
Current Directors
Econometrics
Yale has one of the finest research groups in econometrics in the academic world. The department has consistently led international rankings in econometrics over the last three decades.
Current Directors
Economic Theory
Microeconomic Theory at Yale is characterized by a large faculty and comprehensive course offerings across all specializations, foremost among them decision theory, game theory, and general equilibrium theory. The Cowles Foundation is supporting a Research Program in Microeconomic Theory which hosts every year a number of long-term visitors.
Current Directors
Industrial Organization
Industrial Organization—the study of imperfectly competitive markets—has a particularly strong tradition at Yale. Many of the central ideas of the field were developed at Yale, and many of the field’s top scholars were trained here.
Current Directors
International Trade
The International Trade group at Yale extends across the department and the School of Management and includes faculty who work on theoretical, empirical, and quantitative trade models, trade policy, political economy, and international finance. The field also benefits from the university’s globalization initiative and receives support from the Economic Growth Center.
Current Directors
Labor and Public Economics
Labor Economics and Public Finance at Yale covers a broad range of research, including the development of individual careers, effects of taxes and welfare programs on lifecycle decisions of individuals, wage and employment determination, education economics, voting and local public finance, the analysis of racial and gender discrimination.
Current Directors
Macroeconomics
Yale has a long and storied tradition of excellence in macroeconomics and is currently one of the most vibrant macro research groups in the world. It includes faculty leading the field in both theory and empirical research as well as several faculty influencing current policy debates. It consistently trains and places macroeconominists in leading universities and policy institutions around the world.