Emily Oster graduated from Choate in 1998. While at school, she was News Editor of ‘The Choate News’ and was an active student of economics. She went on to Harvard University and became a researcher in the field of Economics. Recently, ‘The New York Times’ recognized Oster as one of thirteen young, un-tenured “economists to watch.” She has been recognized within the field for her her work in the study of AIDS in Africa.



Former Choate News News Editor and Choate alumna Emily Oster ’98 was one of thirteen young researchers named “economists to watch” by the New York Times. The researchers were selected by a group of senior economists for doing “impressive work on real-world problems.”

Oster is a respected economist throughout her field. She has helped to answer several questions concerning high HIV rates in different countries. Her findings, she claims, are results that neither epidemiologists nor public health workers would deduce. “It’s an idea only an economist would love,” she told the Times.

Economists do not normally play an active role in civil matters such as health and disease, yet in the last decade they have been using analysis of data to learn about fundamentals of cause and effect.

As a Ph. D student at Harvard, Ms. Oster took on the challenge of AIDS in Africa. From her visits she discovered that culturally, Africans were not much different than Americans regarding AIDS. Well-off Africans did not take more sexual partners and practiced safer sex. However, poorer Africans, who make up the majority of the population on the continent, did not expect to reach an old age and therefore had less incentive to protect against HIV. Ms. Oster concluded that an attack on HIV should coincide with an assault on the poverty of Africa’s economy.

Two weeks ago, hundreds of economists gathered in Chicago for an annual conference. Many of the new research papers presented and the discussions during interviews for job openings would be of valid interest to non-economists.

Ms. Oster has presented her work to many, including the President’s Commission on AIDS. Her findings have aided recent efforts toward better HIV prevention measures.

Although many economists like Emily Oster have uncovered valuable research, two obstacles stand in the way of revolutionizing economics to produce a true science.

The first is that the field remains narrow in approach. Economists obtain job offers, endowment chairs and prizes for statistically significant patters that are published in prestigious economic journals. Collaborating with experts in other fields to utilize those patterns within a larger mainframe is often not as well rewarded.

The second barrier occurs when economists find insight on other topics through their analysis. They are often hesitant to share their wisdom for fear of becoming advocates for better policy and putting their reputation for impartiality at risk. Many insist that their job is only to report findings and not to make judgments even if their research could benefit many people if further explored.

Ms. Oster took those risks, which was instrumental in her being named one of the top future economists. Her husband Jesse Shapiro, another young economist who made the Times list, has done work on the benefits of television for toddlers. He, too, has taken such risks. Of the thirteen economists, six are married to others in the group. Both Emily Oster and her husband are inaugural fellows at a University of Chicago research center run by distinguished members in the field.

Economics definitely runs in Ms. Oster’s family. Both her parents are also economists. Ray Fair, her father, invented a well known economic formula that has been able to predict the outcome of presidential elections and her mother, Sharon Oster, studies business strategy.

The new generation of researchers should bring economics closer to entering a new era in which it will have an opportunity to influence its subject matter—the world. In order for this to happen, the economists must act as scientists, trying to solve each problem as they come across it and following up on each formula. As Choate graduate Emily Oster and her husband have shown, research in economics can help solve crucial issues.