Santa Clara University

Alexander J. Field

Michel and Mary Orradre Professor of Economics

Professor Field's current research is in two main areas. The first, aimed at better integrating the human sciences, is reflected in his 2001 book, Altruistically Inclined? The Behavioral Sciences, Evolutionary Theory, and the Origins of Reciprocity, which won the 2003 Alpha Sigma Nu National Book Award in the Social Sciences. Recently puublished articles in this area include “Group Selection and Behavioral Economics,” in the Handbook of Contemporary Behavioral Economics: Foundations and Developments (2006), “Beyond Foraging”, which appeared in the December 2007 Journal of Institutional Economics, and “Why Multilevel Selection Matters”, in the Journal of Bioeconomics (December 2008).  Working papers include "Schelling, Irrationality, and the Event that didn't Occur" and "Behavioral Economics:  Lessons from the Military."

His second area of current interest is in macroeconomic history with a focus on technology and productivity. His article "The Most Technologically Progressive Decade of the Twentieth Century" appeared in the September 2003 American Economic Review. Other recent articles include “Technological Change and U.S. Economic Growth in the Interwar Years,” Journal of Economic History (March 2006), “Technical Change and U.S. Economic Growth: The Interwar Period and the 1990s” in Paul Rhode and Gianni Toniolo, eds. The Global Economy in the 1990s: A Long Run Perspective (2006), “The Equipment Hypothesis and U.S. Economic Growth,” Explorations in Economic History (January 2007), “The Origins of U.S. Total Factor Productivity Growth in the Golden Age,” Cliometrica (April 2007), “The Impact of the Second World War on U.S. Productivity Growth” Economic History Review (2008) and “U.S. Economic Growth in the Gilded Age,” Journal of Macroeconomics (March 2009).  His book The Great Depression and the U.S. Economics Growth is scheduled to be published by Yale Univesity Press in 2010.

Professor Field recently completed two years of service on the National Science Foundation’s Economics Panel. He is Editor of Research in Economic History, on the Editorial Board of Cliometrica, and on the Advisory Board of the Journal of Bioeconomics. He has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Literature (1981-2004) and on the editorial boards of Explorations in Economic History (1983-89) and the Journal of Economic History (2001-04).

At Santa Clara he has served as acting Academic Vice President (1986-87), on the University's Board of Trustees (1988-91), as Associate and Acting Dean of the Leavey School of Business between 1993 and 1997, and as chair of the Economics Department between 1988 and 1993. In September 2004, he became Executive Director of the Economic History Association.

October 2009