A. Michael Spence

A. Michael Spence is an eminent economist. His pioneering 1973 doctoral thesis, entitled Market Signalling, deals with education as a productivity signal in job markets and helped form the core of modern information economics. His research contributions were recognized by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2001, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences.

Spence is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus of Management in the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. Prior to this, he served as dean and professor of the Stanford Business School, and professor of economics and business administration at Harvard University. At Harvard, he also served as dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, overseeing Harvard College, the graduate school of arts and sciences, and the division of continuing education.

Spence is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also the recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal from the American Economic Association, the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics from the Progressive Economics Forum, and the David A. Wells Prize from Harvard University.