Deirdre McCloskey

Deirdre McCloskey
McCloskey in 2014
Born	Donald McCloskey (changed to Deirdre McCloskey in 1995) (1942-09-11) September 11, 1942 (age 74) Ann Arbor, Michigan
Fields	Neolibertanian Baroque, Economic history, Cliometrics
Alma mater	Harvard University
Thesis	Economic Maturity and Entrepreneurial Decline: British Iron and Steel, 1870–1913 (1970)
Doctoral advisor	Alexander Gerschenkron
Known for	Economic history of Britain

Deirdre Nansen McCloskey (born September 11, 1942), formerly known as Donald N. McCloskey, is the Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). She is also adjunct professor of Philosophy and Classics there, and for five years was a visiting Professor of philosophy at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. Since October 2007 she has received six honorary doctorates. In 2013, she received the Julian L. Simon Memorial Award from the Competitive Enterprise Institute for her work examining factors in history that led to advancement in human achievement and prosperity. Her main research interests include the origins of the modern world, the misuse of statistical significance in economics and other sciences, and the study of capitalism, among many others.

McCloskey earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Economics at Harvard University. Her dissertation, supervised by Alexander Gerschenkron, on British iron and steel won in 1973 the David A. Wells Prize.

In 1968, McCloskey became an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago, where she stayed for 12 years, gaining tenure as an associate professor in economics in 1975, and an associate professorship in history in 1979. Her work at Chicago is marked by her contribution to the cliometric revolution in economic history, and teaching generations of leading economists Chicago Price Theory, a course which culminated in her book The Applied Theory of Price. In 1979, at the suggestion of Wayne Booth in English at Chicago, she turned to the study of rhetoric in economics. Later at the University of Iowa, McCloskey, the John Murray Professor of Economics and of History (1980–99), published The Rhetoric of Economics (1985) and co-founded with John S. Nelson, Allan Megill, and others an institution and graduate program, the Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry. McCloskey has authored 16 books and nearly 400 articles in her many fields.