Steven D. Levitt
  • Affiliated Research Professor
Joint Appointment
William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, University of Chicago
Director, Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory
Education
Ph.D. in Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.A. in Economics, Harvard University

Steven D. Levitt

  • Affiliated Research Professor
ABF Researcher

Steven D. Levitt (he/him) is an Affiliated Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation. He is the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he also directs the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory. In 2004, he was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, which recognizes the most influential economist in America under the age of 40. More recently, he was named one of Time magazine’s “100 People Who Shape Our World.”

Levitt is the coauthor, with Stephen J. Dubner, of Freakonomics, which spent more than two years on the New York Times Best Seller list and has sold more than four million copies worldwide, and SuperFreakonomics, which included research on topics from terrorism to prostitution to global warming. He is also the coauthor of the popular Freakonomics blog.

Research Focus

Crime, the criminal justice system, corruption, and a wide variety of issues related to racial disparity and education