In January 2025, I will join Columbia University as a tenured Associate Professor of Economics. I’m happy to return to my alma mater.
Since folks tend to underestimate the role luck plays in career outcomes, let me note a few critical junctures at which I benefited from good fortune.
As an undergraduate student, I visited Oxford for six months. Most Oxford tutorials are taught by DPhil (PhD) students in the undergraduate’s college. Unknown reasons caused me to be assigned to a tutor in another college for international economics: Andrew Charlton, who was completing his DPhil and a book with Joe Stiglitz that year. Lucky timing meant he was an LSE faculty member the next year when I needed a reference letter for graduate-school applications.
My lucky timing continued as an Oxford MPhil student. My international trade sequence was taught by Peter Neary, Volker Nocke, Beata Javorcik, and Tony Venables. All of them arrived at Oxford during my two years as a student. I did not know I would get to study with such great trade economists when I chose the masters program.
I was also fortunate to read Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities after my second year at Columbia because my friend Tim Lee blogged his rereading of the book that summer. When I asked Don Davis, “are you still interested in talking about cities?” in the fall of my third year, we started a productive years-long conversation.
Every publication requires some sympathy from an editor or referee to get accepted. I had some good luck in that regard too.