is an economist who currently holds emeritus status as Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she is also adjunct professor of Philosophy and Classics. She previously held tenured positions at the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa, where she was John F. Murray Chair of Economics, and has held visiting professorships at Erasmus University at Rotterdam, Australian National University, the University of York, the University of Manchester, and the University of London. She is a former Guggenheim Fellow, NEH Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, and President of the Economic History Association.
Some of her awards include the Adam Smith Prize, the Hayek Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Julian Simon Prize. During her prolific career Dr McCloskey has published dozens of books and several hundred articles. Her scholarly work began in the heart of statistical analysis but her study of “market-tested betterment” has ranged through questions at once economic, social, historical, theological, aesthetic, literary, ethical, and political. Her landmark trilogy of books, The Bourgeois Era, shows above all that good ideas are at the root of the creation of value. Dr McCloskey is a staunch supporter of the humanities and sees its principles as the structural grid upon which economies are built.
