David Laibson

Another area of research focus for Laibson involves models of bounded rationality in markets; he has co-authored papers in this field with Xavier Gabaix and other scholars. For his career achievements, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2019.

Laibson is well known for his work on time inconsistency, especially his model of quasi-hyperbolic discounting. One of his most prominent early contributions has been the “Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting” 1997 paper in QJE where he studied the intertemporal behavior of a time-inconsistent consumer. This work provides a tractable model for self-control problems, in which agents have difficulty sticking to their long-term goals. Agents in Professor Laibson’s models generally value “commitment devices,” such as 401(k) plans or housing equity, that let them accumulate assets without as much temptation to splurge. These models also explain the “debt puzzle,” the idea that American consumers demonstrate both short-run impatience and long-run patience in their lifecycle savings decisions. Laibson has since developed hyperbolic discounting research in many directions, from more advanced theoretical models to computational macroeconomics to conceptual applications.

Laibson was raised by Ruth and Peter Laibson in Haverford, Pennsylvania. He received an AB (summa) from Harvard in 1988, studying under Benjamin M. Friedman, and went on to win a Marshall Scholarship to study at the London School of Economics (MSc in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics). He received his PhD from MIT in 1994 and joined the faculty at Harvard once he graduated. He has since gained tenure. He is married to the mathematician Nina Zipser, and they have a son, Max.

David Isaac Laibson (born June 26, 1966) is a professor of economics at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1994. His research focuses on macroeconomics, intertemporal choice, behavioral economics, and neuroeconomics. In 2016, he became chairman of the Harvard economics department.