William J. Collins

Terence E. Adderley Jr. Chair and Professor of Economics; Professor of History (by courtesy)

Professor Collins is an economic historian whose research focuses on US labor markets and cities. He has recently studied immigration and inter-regional migration, income inequality, racial disparities, and unions. Professor Collins is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and is Co-Director of the NBER’s Development of the American Economy Program. He has been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, Senior Economist for the Council of Economic Advisers, visiting scholar at the Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and Editor of the Journal of Economic History and Explorations in Economic History. He has served as the Chair of the Department of Economics and as the Department’s Director of Graduate Studies. He has been honored as a Fellow of the Cliometric Society, and he has received the College of Arts and Science’s Nordhaus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the IPUMS-USA Research Award, and the Economic History Association’s Nevins Prize.