1994 Nemmers Prize in Economics Recipient

Peter A. Diamond

For his analysis of the effects of the public debt on the behavior of the economy in the long run, his revolutionary study of sales and property taxes, and his pioneering of a novel way of thought regarding prosperity and recession

Peter A. Diamond is the Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Diamond's first pathbreaking article, written in 1965, showed how to analyze the effects of the public debt on the behavior of the economy in the long run, and it has formed the basis for much of what has been written in the past decade about the growth of the U.S. public debt. His second article revolutionized the study of sales and property taxes, showing governments how they could raise the required amount of revenue while minimizing the harmful effects of the taxes on the functioning of the economy. His third article opened up a whole new way of thinking about prosperity and recession, emphasizing how the actions of each producer "spill over" and enlarge (or shrink) the market for other goods.

Diamond also has participated actively in policy discussions and debate, especially in the areas of social security and health policy, where individual choice and social insurance come together.

Diamond was a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance in 1988 and he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 1984. He was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978 and a fellow of the Econometric Society in 1968.

He was also a recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1966 and in 1982-83. The author of numerous articles, Diamond is also co-editor of the Journal of Public Economics.

A member of the MIT faculty since 1966, Diamond has been a visiting professor at the European University Institute; Harvard University; Balliol College at Oxford; Nuffield College at Oxford; Hebrew University, Jerusalem; University College, Nairobi; and Churchill College at Cambridge. He has also been a member of the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.

Diamond received a Ph.D. in economics from MIT in 1963.