Latest Insights

Research Briefs·Mar 19, 2025

Drive Down the Cost: Learning by Doing and Government Policies in the Global EV Battery Industry

The learning rate for EV battery production is 7.5%, meaning costs drop by 7.5% when production experience doubles. Learning by doing enhances EV subsidies’ impact and creates global spillovers.
Podcasts episode·Mar 18, 2025

Will They or Won’t They? A Former Fed Official on This Week’s Interest Rate Decision

This week, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee meets to decide whether to adjust interest rates or keep them steady.  What should we expect amid today’s economic and political uncertainty? On this episode of The Pie, Randy Kroszner, former Federal...
Podcasts episode·Mar 14, 2025

Partner Episode: Should Performance Reviews Be Scrapped?

Chicago Booth Review Podcast
Research Briefs·Mar 11, 2025

Central Bank Communication with the Polarized Public

Individuals who view the Fed as politically aligned report higher independence of and trust in the Fed, leading to lower inflation expectations and uncertainty. Strategic communication on institutional structure and policy objectives mitigates perception biases.

Latest Frontier Research

BFI Working Paper·Mar 20, 2025

Credit Card Entrepeneurs

Beginning in January 2021, over less than two years, credit card usage by small U.S. businesses nearly doubled, interest payments rose by 60%, and delinquencies reached 2.8%. In this paper, we utilize near real-time QuickBooks data from over 1.6 million...
BFI Working Paper·Mar 19, 2025

The Impact of Employment on Partnerships: Evidence from a Refugee Settlement

We measure the impact of employment by assessing its effect on the individual and their marital partnership in the Rohingya refugee camps. To do so, we randomly assign either the husband or wife to a six-week job. We find that...
BFI Working Paper·Mar 10, 2025

The Rise of Healthcare Jobs

Healthcare employment has grown more than twice as fast as the labor force since 1980, overtaking retail trade to become the largest industry by employment in 2009. We document key facts about the rise of healthcare jobs. Earnings for healthcare...

Past Events

Mar 24
Workshops·Mar 24, 2025, 12:00 PM·Charles M. Harper Center | Room C03

Spring 2025 Behavioral Economics Seminar Series

by Leonardo Bursztyn and Alex Imas
Mar 14
Event·Mar 14, 2025, 12:00 PM·SAIEH HALL ROOM 201

It’s a Pi(e) Day Party!

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Upcoming Events

Mar 24
Workshops·Mar 24, 2025, 12:00 PM·Charles M. Harper Center | Room C03

Spring 2025 Behavioral Economics Seminar Series

Organizers: Leonardo Bursztyn and Alex Imas
Mar 28
Academic Conferences·Mar 28, 2025, 9:00 AM·David Rubinstein Forum, Room 504

2025 IOG Spring Conference

Organizers: Oeindrila Dube, Roger Myerson, Torsten Persson, and Francesco Trebbi
Mar 28
Workshops·Mar 28, 2025, 12:30 PM·Saieh Hall for Economics, Rm 021 , 5757 S. University, Chicago, IL, United States, 60637

Development Lunch Workshop – Spring 2025

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About BFI

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About the Becker Friedman Institute

The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) serves as a hub for cutting-edge analysis and research across the entire University of Chicago economics community, uniting researchers from the Booth School of Business, the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, the...
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Our Legacy

Inspired by our namesakes, Nobel Laureates Gary Becker and Milton Friedman, who believed that economics research could help improve the world, BFI works with the Chicago Economics community to turn its evidence-based research into real-world impact.

Our Team

University of Chicago faculty members and other accomplished economists set the goals and direction of the Institute.
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