On apologies, academia, quitting, critical thinking, and scaling great ideas.
John List is the Kenneth C. Griffin Distinguished Service Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago. He received his B.S. in economics at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and Ph.D. in economics at the University of Wyoming. He joined the UChicago faculty in 2005, and served as Chairman of the Department of Economics from 2012-2018. Prior to joining the University of Chicago, he was a professor at several universities, and has more prizes for his work than I can count.
In addition to his academic career, List served as the chief economist for Uber, Lyft and now WalMart. Previously, he served in the White House on the Council of Economic Advisers from 2002-2003.
His research focuses on questions in microeconomics, with a particular emphasis on using field experiments to address issues related to the inner-workings of markets, the effects of various incentives schemes on market equilibria and allocations, how behavioral economics can augment the standard economic model, on early childhood education and interventions, and more recently on the gender earnings gap in the gig economy, using evidence from rideshare drivers.
His research includes over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and several published books, including the 2013 international best-seller, The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life, and his new book, The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale. You can get a copy where you get your books.