Robert J. LaLonde, a professor at Chicago Harris, focuses on program evaluation, education and training of the workforce, economic effects of immigration on developed countries, costs of worker displacement, impact of unions and collective bargaining in the United States, and economic and social consequences of incarceration. LaLonde is leading research projects examining women in Illinois prisons and their children, and the employment prospects of young men after they are paroled from prison.
He received his PhD in economics from Princeton University and joined the University of Chicago in 1985, where he first taught for ten years at both the Graduate School of Business and Chicago Harris. Previously, LaLonde was an associate professor of economics at Michigan State University. He has been a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) since 1986 and served as a senior staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisers during the 1987-1988 academic year. He is also a Research Fellow at NBER and the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Currently, he serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Public/Private Ventures, a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the effectiveness of social policies, programs, and community initiatives.