x x x x x
x xx x
x
x

Kathy and me at the top of Paint Brush Divide in the Grand Tetons.

x

Frank Levy 

flevy@mit.edu

Phone: 617-253-2089

Fax: 617-258-8594

I am Daniel Rose Professor of Urban Economics in the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP). 

My research examines the ways that computer technology and offshoring are reshaping opportunities in the labor market. Further down on this page are three papers in this area: one on how computers are changing worker skill requirements; two others other on the offshoring of radiology reads. Also below is the 2005 reading list for a course I have taught in this area. Much of this work is described in The New Division of Labor: How Computers are Creating the Next Job Market  co-authored with Richard J. Murnane (Princeton University Press, paperback edition 2005).

I also do research on U.S. income inequality and living standards and the economics of education.  The New Dollars and Dreams (1999) recounts the history of United States incomes and the income distribution from the close of World War II through the present. My new paper with Peter Temin, "Inequality and Institutions in 20'th Century America" can be downloaded at no charge from SSRN by clicking this title. I presented a short version of this work in the first Bernie Saffran Memorial Lecture, delivered at Swarthmore College, November 15, 2007.

Teaching the New Basic Skills (with Richard J. Murnane) (1996) examines  the growing mismatch between what K-12 schools teach and what employers require and case studies of schools who have worked to close that gap.

In 2007-8, I will be teaching tje microeconomics course directed at students in our Masters of City Planning program.The course has resulted in a series of web-based microeconomic teaching tools that can be accessed at: http://plaza.mit.edu/econ/.

I will also be teaching an undergraduate course on the economics of education - the reading list for the 2007 version appears below.

I live in Newton, Massachusetts with my wife, Kathy Swartz, a Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. Our son, Dave,  is doing an MBA after working five years in New York City government. Our daughter, Marin, recently finished law school and will be starting work in the fall.  

Working Papers on Computers, Offshoring and Labor Demand:

  • How Computerized Work and Globalization Shape Human Skill Demands. Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane [Revised May 2006]

    (PDF)

  • Offshoring Radiology Services to India. Frank Levy and Kyoung-Hee Yu. (August 2006)

(PDF)

 

  • Offshoring and Radiology. Frank Levy and Ari Goelman [September 2005]

    (PDF)

  • The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Investigation. David Autor, Frank Levy, Richard J. Murnane (published in Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 2003)

    (PDF)

  • Reading List for my Undergraduate Course on Information Technology and the Labor Market [Spring 2005]

    (PDF)

  • Reading List for my Undergraduate Course on the Economics of Education [Spring 2007] (PDF)