T.W. Schultz Memorial Lecture & Award
History of TW Schultz Lecture Event
The inaugural T.W. Schultz speaker event was introduced in 2006 with a memorial dinner and keynote address delivered by Nobel laureate, Professor Gary Becker from the University of Chicago. Initiated by the AAEA Foundation (currently AAEA Trust) , the T.W. Schultz event, followed the format of the Galbraith model established in the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) summer meetings and served as way to honor TW Schultz and support the AAEA Foundation. For over a decade, this event has hosted notable speakers including Nobel laureates James Heckman, Daniel McFadden, George Akerlof, Daniel Kahneman, Roger Myerson, and others. The T.W. Schultz Memorial Lecture is now given every year during the AAEA sessions at the ASSA Meetings which typically happen the first week in January.
About TW Schultz
Theodore W. Schultz was born in South Dakota in1902. He received his B.S. from South Dakota State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Schultz received an extensive variety of awards and honors throughout his career including six honorary degrees. He was a Past President of the American Economics Association (1960) and was named a Fellow of the American Farm Economics Association (currently AAEA) in 1947. Schultz received the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Science in 1979. A few of his major contributions to economics include his studies on economic growth and human capital and his extensive work on rural economics and the economics of poverty. He worked actively through age 90.
Previous Winners
| Year | Winner |
| 2025 | TBD |
| 2024 | Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, Michigan State University "Regression-Based Strategies for Heterogeneous Treatment Effects with Staggered Interventions" |
| 2023 | Maureen Cropper, University of Maryland "Estimating the Social Cost of Carbon: Progress and Challenges" |
| 2022 | Lisa Schulte Moore, Iowa State University "Toward a Circular Corn Belt: Science and Stakeholders, Landscapes and Leadership" |
| 2021 |
William Darity Jr., Ph.D., Duke University "Reconsidering the Economics of Identity: Position, Power, and Property" |
| 2020 |
Susan Athey, Stanford University “Experimental Design and Analysis Using Machine Learning” |
| 2019 |
Raj Chetty, Harvard University "The Opportunity Atlas: The Geography of Economic Opportunity in America" |
| 2018 |
Dave Donaldson, MIT "Comparative Advantage and the Gains from Market Integration" |
| 2017 |
Steven N. Durlauf, University of Wisconsin-Madison "A New Approach to Measuring Genetic and Environmental Influences in Twins Studies" |
| 2016 |
Frank Wolak, Stanford University "Solving the West's Water Problem" |
| 2015 |
Emily Oster, University of Chicago Booth School "Health and Human Capital Investment: What Does the Evidence Say about Magnitudes?” |
| 2014 |
Michael Kremer, Harvard University "Joint Liability, Asset Collateralization, and Credit Access" |
| 2013 |
Robert Townsend, MIT "Accounting for the Poor: Theory and Measurement" |
| 2012 |
Roger Myerson, University of Chicago "State Building, Leadership, and Local Democracy" |
| 2011 |
Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University "Remarks on the Psychology of Value" |
| 2010 |
Dale W. Jorgenson, Harvard University "Innovation and Productivity Growth" |
| 2009 |
George A. Akerlof, University of California, Berkeley "How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why it Matters" |
| 2008 |
Daniel McFadden, University of California, Berkeley "Economic Juries, Applied Mechanism Design, and the Value of Environmental Resources" |
| 2007 |
James J. Heckman, University of Chicago "Investing in Children: The Economics of Early" |
| 2006 | Gary Becker, University of Chicago |