Jens Ludwig

Jens Ludwig is an economist who studies violence and urban poverty. The co-director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, he also conducts research on Head Start, a United States federal educational program that assists children from economically disadvantaged families.

His research has been published in leading scientific journals across a range of disciplines including Science, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Economic Journal, and the American Journal of Sociology. His co-authored article on race, peer norms, and education with Philip Cook was awarded the Vernon Prize for best article in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. He is also co-author of Gun Violence: The Real Costs (2000), co-editor with Cook of Evaluating Gun Policy (2003), and co-editor of Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs (2012).