Economics

For more than a century, UChicago economists have developed groundbreaking theories to help us understand how our world works. Some scholars look at the big picture—how the government spends money or how countries trade products. Others study individual parts of our economy, like the agricultural sector or the labor market. 

More than 30 scholars affiliated with UChicago have won the top honor in economics—the Nobel Prize. Among their field-defining contributions:

Milton Friedman, probably the most influential economist of the 20th century, is known for his work on monetarism—or controlling the amount of money in circulation. His theories about inflation and arguments against government regulation influenced generations of economic thought. 

Gary Becker, a student of Friedman’s, is credited with advancing the theory of human capital. This idea recognizes the economic value of a person’s skills—things like experience, technical knowledge and education level. His now-widely accepted ideas have shaped everything from law to psychology to public policy. 

Prof. Eugene Fama is considered the “father of modern finance.” Fama developed the efficient market hypothesis, which is the idea that a stock’s price accurately reflects all available information, like a company’s earnings or a potential merger. 

Prof. Richard Thaler received a Nobel Prize in 2017 as one of the founding figures of behavioral economics, a growing field aimed at understanding why we make the decisions we do and even how to “nudge” us to make better choices.

Today, UChicago continues to shape the field of economics across disciplines and schools of thought—conducting innovative research, hosting events in which scholars engage in rigorous debate and inspiring the next generation of scholars.

Learn more about economics at UChicago:

• Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics
• Chicago Booth School of Business 
• Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics
• Harris School of Public Policy

Sleep Research

All human beings need sleep. We spend a third of our lives asleep, and it’s as important as food, water or air to our survival.

While scientists are still working to understand the exact nature of sleep and why it’s so important to our well-being, decades of research have made it clear that adequate sleep is vital to our physical and mental health. Among other things, it is important in consolidating memories and other brain functions, supporting the immune system and healing after injury or disease, and protecting against heart disease and diabetes.

The University of Chicago has been a longtime pioneer in sleep research. Prof. Nathaniel Kleitman, who opened the first laboratory focused exclusively on sleep in 1925, made many pioneering discoveries. His textbook, Sleep and Wakefulness, has long been considered a foundational text for sleep researchers around the world, and in 1953, he and his graduate student Eugene Aserinsky discovered REM sleep. A later director of the Sleep Laboratory, Prof. Allan Rechtschaffen, was the first to find that sleep is vital for humans and animals—without it we will literally die.

Much still remains to be understood about sleep, even after decades of research, but it is clear that it plays a vital role in our health. Today, UChicago scholars including Esra Tasali, Erin Hanlon and Diane Lauderdale continue to pioneer the science of sleep.

Explore UChicago Library’s archival collections on sleep research:

• Papers of Nathaniel Kleitman
• Association for the Psychophysiological Study of Sleep Records, 1961-1986