Yale School of Management - Faculty

Charles W. Goodyear Professor in Global Affairs, Professor of Economics and Management, & Director of the Jackson Institute

Levinsohn’s fields of expertise are in international economics, industrial organization, economic development and applied econometrics. Recently, his academic research has focused on the impact of HIV/AIDS on unemployment and school attendance in South Africa. He has published widely on trade policy, foreign investment practices and the global corporation.

Levinsohn’s international activities form a major component of his work. He has lived and worked in Senegal, Botswana and South Africa. One of his projects, now in its 11th year, trains government officials, university faculty and students, and NGO staff from over a dozen countries in southern Africa on how to use data to inform policymaking. He has also worked with Sudanese refugees in their attempt to be compensated for their forcible removal from their homelands.

A former professor and associate dean at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, Levinsohn has held visiting appointments at the University of Cape Town, Tel Aviv University, the Institute for International Economic Studies in Stockholm, and Stanford’s Hoover Institution.

He has served on the editorial boards of numerous economics publications, including the American Economic Review and the Review of Economics and Statistics. Both his research and teaching have been recognized with major grants and awards.

Selected Books
New Directions in Trade Theory (with A. Deardor and R. Stern, eds.), University of Michigan Press, 1995

Selected Articles
"Incomes in South Africa after the Fall of Apartheid" (with J. McCrary and M. Leibbrandt), Journal of Globalization and Development, Vol.1, No.1, 2010

Why Has Unemployment Risen in the New South Africa?" (with A. Banerjee, S. Galiani, Z. Mc-Claren, and I. Woolard), The Economics of Transition, Vol. 16, No. 4, 715-740, 2008

"Fooling Ourselves: Evaluating the Globalization and Growth Debate" (with Juan Carlos Hallak), in E. Zedillo, ed., The Future of Globalization, Routledge, 2008

"Does Food Aid Harm the Poor? Household Evidence from Ethiopia" (with M. McMillan), in A. Harrison, ed., Globalization and Poverty, University of Chicago Press, 2007

"Differentiated Products Demand Systems from a Combination of Micro and Macro Data: The New Car Market" (with S. Berry and A. Pakes), Journal of Political Economy, 68-105, February, 2004

"Estimating Production Functions Using Inputs to Control for Unobservables" (with A. Petrin), Review of Economic Studies, 317-342, April, 2003

Working Papers
"The Prevalence of HIV in Botswana" (with J. McCrary)

"HIV Status and Labor Market Participation in South Africa" (with Z. McLaren, O. Shisana, and K. Zuma)

"The Role of Reservation Wages in Youth Unemployment in Cape Town, South Africa: A Structural Approach" (with J. McCrary and T. Pugatch)

"Two Policies to Alleviate Unemployment in South Africa"

"Measuring Aggregate Productivity Growth Using Plant-level Data" (with A. Petrin)

Education
BA Williams College, 1981
MPA Princeton University, 1985
PhD Princeton University, 1988