Michael Woodford

Michael Woodford was born in 1955 in Chicopee, Massachusetts, United States.⁠[1]

In 1977 Woodford received an AB from the University of Chicago.⁠[2]

In 1980 he earned a JD from Yale Law School and then turned to economics, holding a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship from 1980 to 1983.⁠[2][1]

From 1981 to 1986 Woodford held a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation “Prize Fellowship.”⁠[2][3]

In 1983 he earned a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and spent that autumn as a visiting fellow at Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry.⁠[2][1]

In 1984 Woodford began his academic career as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at Columbia University, a post he held until 1986.⁠[3][2]

From 1986 to 1989 he was assistant professor of business economics at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business; he then served in its Department of Economics as associate professor from 1989 to 1992 and as professor from 1992 to 1995.⁠[2]

During this period he published “Learning to Believe in Sunspots” in Econometrica (1990), served as an associate editor of Econometrica (1990–1993) and co-editor of Economic Theory (1992–1995), and was elected a fellow of the Econometric Society in 1991.⁠[2]

Since 1994 Woodford has been a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), affiliated with its Economic Fluctuations and Growth and Monetary Economics programs.⁠[2][4]

In 1995 he moved to Princeton University’s Department of Economics as professor, and from 1998 to 2004 he held the Harold H. Helm ’20 Professorship of Economics and Banking.⁠[2]

In 1997 he co-authored a paper with Julio Rotemberg that econometrically estimated a quantitative New Keynesian model, helping lay the theoretical groundwork for New Keynesian monetary policy.⁠[1]

While at Princeton he held a Guggenheim Fellowship (1998–1999), co-edited the three-volume Handbook of Macroeconomics (Elsevier, 1999) with John B. Taylor, served as an associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics (1995–2000) and the American Economic Review (1997–1999), and was a visiting professor at Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry in fall 2002.⁠[2]

In 2003 Princeton University Press published his major work, Interest and Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy, which won the Association of American Publishers award for best professional/scholarly book in economics that year.⁠[2][5]

In 2004 Woodford returned to Columbia University as John Bates Clark Professor of Political Economy, and that year he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.⁠[3][2]

From 2004 to 2019 he served on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Monetary Policy Panel, co-edited the International Journal of Central Banking from 2004 to 2007, and was a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research from 2004 to 2022.⁠[2]

In 2005 The Inflation Targeting Debate, which he co-edited with Ben S. Bernanke, was published by the University of Chicago Press; from 2005 to 2014 he was co-editor of the NBER Macroeconomics Annual.⁠[2]

In 2007 Woodford received the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics and became a distinguished fellow of the Center for Financial Studies in Frankfurt; in 2007–2008 he was Arthur Okun and Kumho Visiting Professor at Yale UniversityYale UniversityYale University is a research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Its predecessor, the Collegiate School, received a charter in 1701. Trustees chose New Haven in 1716; the institution became Yale College in 1718 and Yale University in 1887. Yale provides undergraduate, graduate and professional education and has 14 undergraduate residential colleges. As of October 2026, its president was Maurie McInnis, who took office in July 2024. In 2026, Yale expanded aid for incoming undergraduates and celebrated its 325th anniversary.Open the full entry.⁠[2][6]

In 2011 the two-volume Handbook of Monetary Economics, co-edited with Benjamin M. Friedman, was published, and he published “Simple Analytics of the Government Expenditure Multiplier” in the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. From 2011 to 2013 he served on the executive committee of the American Economic Association, and in 2011–2012 he was Taussig Visiting Professor at Harvard University.⁠[2]

From 2012 to 2016 Woodford was a scientific advisor to Sveriges Riksbank, and in 2012 he received the best paper prize of the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. He also served on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Economic Advisory Panel from 2009 to 2017 and has sat on an advisory panel of the Bank for International Settlements since 2016.⁠[2]

In 2018 he received the Banque de France/TSE Prize in Monetary Economics and Finance and became an affiliate member of Columbia University’s Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute.⁠[2]

From 2022 Woodford chaired Columbia University’s Department of Economics. That year Princeton University Press published the textbook International Macroeconomics, which he wrote with Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé and Martin Uribe, and he published “Effective Demand Failures and the Limits of Monetary Stabilization Policy” in the American Economic Review.⁠[2]

In 2024 Woodford received Northwestern University’s Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics.⁠[2][1]

On February 25, 2025, the BBVA Foundation announced that the seventeenth Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics, Finance and Management would go to Olivier Blanchard, Jordi Galí and Woodford, calling the three “central architects of the New Keynesian paradigm.” The announcement noted that Woodford’s work also informed unconventional tools such as forward guidance.⁠[1][5]

On October 12, 2026, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced in Stockholm that the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred NobelAlfred NobelAlfred Nobel (1833–1896) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor and industrialist who invented dynamite, the blasting cap, blasting gelatine and the smokeless powder ballistite and founded enterprises in more than 20 countries. Through his will he left his fortune to establish the five Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace.Open the full entry would go to Woodford and Robert E. Hall of Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation.” The prize money is 12 million Swedish kronor. Woodford was 70 at the time.⁠[7][8][6]

The academy said the laureates built their models on a microeconomic foundation rather than on statistical links between macroeconomic variables, and that “The laureates have helped us smooth out the economy’s peaks and troughs.” John Hassler, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said their work provided “a stable theoretical foundation” for the models now used by central banks and governments, leaving them better equipped to deal with shocks such as energy crises or sudden changes in household consumption.⁠[8][9]

Woodford learned of the prize by telephone in New York. He recalled that he had been trying to sleep when the call came and was “at best, half awake,” and that his wife later said he did not sound very enthusiastic. Speaking on the call, he said: “It’s a tremendous honor. It’s a surprise. But I’m feeling very good about it.”⁠[10][8][6]

At 10:10 that morning he went ahead with a scheduled exam for his course Cognitive Mechanisms and Economic Behavior in Columbia’s Uris Hall, where students applauded and cheered as he entered. He called the award “a staggering piece of news.” Woodford is the 16th Columbian to receive the economics prize and the university’s 89th Nobel laureate.⁠[11][12]

As of October 25, 2026, Woodford’s research focuses on bounded rationality in economic analysis, drawing on cognitive psychology and neuroscience, especially decisions based on imprecise mental representations. He is founding co-director of the NBER working group on Behavioral Macroeconomics and directs Columbia’s Cognitive and Behavioral Economics Initiative.⁠[5]

He stresses the forward-looking nature of economic decisions and the role of expectations, arguing that policymakers should communicate clearly so that public expectations match what actually happens, and saying that “your behavior being predictable actually has big benefits for the economy.”⁠[10]

Personal website: Public link: https://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/mw2230/ (opens in a new window)⁠[5]

Columbia University: Official website: https://www.columbia.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[6]

National Bureau of Economic Research: Official website: https://www.nber.org/ (opens in a new window)⁠[4]