MIT economist Whitney Newey Ph.D.’83, Ford Professor Emeritus of Economics, received the 2026 Year Award Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics.
The two-year Nemmers Awards from Northwestern University recognizes top scholars for their lasting contributions to modern knowledge, outstanding achievements, and the development of significant modern ways of analysis.
The university cited Newey, whose research focused on econometrics, for creating “a body of work that shaped the field of semiparametric econometrics, guided both econometricians and empirical researchers for several decades, and helped lay the foundation for modern machine learning inference.”
Newey will work with Northwestern faculty and students on programs scheduled for the 2026–27 academic year. The award also includes a $300,000 prize.
“I am delighted, deeply honored and very grateful,” Newey says of the honor. “I am excited about the opportunity and am currently working on ideas and approaches that are important to modern machine learning inference and modern empirical economics more generally, much of it with such capable collaborators. This award will accelerate that work.”
Newey has been a leading figure in econometric theory for over forty years, shaping both research and training in the field. He has done groundbreaking work in variance estimation, nonparametric simultaneous equations, consumer surplus estimation under general heterogeneity, and unbiased machine learning.
“My colleagues and I are thrilled that Whitney’s incredible career has been recognized with this high honor,” says Jonathan Gruber, Ford Professor of Economics and chair of the Department of Economics. “His research gave birth to many of the econometric methods that are now second nature to economists, and those of us in his orbit also know him as a source of wise, comprehensive, and generous advice. Whitney, through both his groundbreaking research and great generosity, symbolizes what has made MIT economics so great for so many years.”
Newey is a distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the Econometric Society. He is also a member of the International Association for Applied Econometrics CEMP at Jinan University and an international member of the Center for Microdata Methods and Practice (CEMMAP) at University College London. He earned bachelor’s and doctorate degrees in economics from Brigham Adolescent University and MIT, respectively.
Newey was named a 2020 Distinguished Fellow by the American Economic Association. He was a member of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and received a research fellowship from the Sloan Foundation. He was co-editor of the journal published by the Econometric Society and program co-chair of the Econometric Society World Congress. He also served on the executive committee of the Econometric Society. He previously taught economics at Princeton University and MIT, and previously served as chair of the MIT Department of Economics. He has been a guest researcher, professor and lecturer at institutions around the world.