2025 Price Theory Summer Camp
The Price Theory Summer Camp, led by UChicago economist Kevin Murphy, was created to introduce PhD students from outside the University of Chicago to price theory, which emphasizes the application of basic economic tools to problems.
During this intensive one-week program, students hear lectures from UChicago faculty and experience a series of “Chicago-style” seminars where faculty present their research. Participants also work on problem sets in workshops and have opportunities to discuss their own work with some of the world’s leading economists.
The program is geared toward PhD students in Economics who have completed their third or fourth year of study, but applications are accepted from doctoral candidates of all levels. Funding is provided to all accepted applicants to cover travel, accommodations, and meals.
Now in its fifteenth year, PTSC boasts 418 alumni, approximately 300 of whom have completed their PhDs and entered the workforce. 82% of alumni pursued careers in academia, while others work in the government or private sector. The forthcoming 2025 cohort will join a robust network of working economists steeped in price theory.
Since its formation, the PTSC has been generously supported by MarrGwen and Stuart Townsend.
For more information or questions, please contact bfi-events@uchicago.edu.
2025 PRICE THEORY AGENDA
The 2025 Price Theory agenda is forthcoming.
2025 PRICE THEORY FACULTY
Kevin Murphy, George J. Stigler Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Kevin M. Murphy is the George J. Stigler Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business as well as co-director of the Becker Friedman Institute’s Price Theory Initiative. He primarily studies the empirical analysis of inequality, unemployment, and relative wages as well as the economics of growth and development and the economic value of improvements in health and longevity. In addition to his position at the University of Chicago, Murphy works as a faculty research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research. A fellow of the Econometric Society and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Murphy was a John Bates Clark Medalist in 1997. He has received fellowships from the Earhart Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, and the Friedman Fund. Murphy is the first professor at a business school to be chosen as a MacArthur Fellow. He was selected for “revealing economic forces shaping vital social phenomena such as wage inequality, unemployment, addiction, medical research, and economic growth.” The foundation felt his work “challenges preconceived notions and attacks seemingly intractable economic questions, placing them on a sound empirical and theoretical footing.” In 2007, Murphy and fellow Chicago Booth faculty member Robert Topel won the Kenneth J. Arrow Award for the best research paper in health economics for “The Value of Health and Longevity,” published in the Journal of Political Economy. The award is given annually by the International Health Economics Association. Murphy is also the author of two books and many academic articles. His writing also has been published in numerous mainstream publications including the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and two Wall Street Journal articles coauthored by Nobel laureate Gary Becker. He earned his PhD in 1986 from the University of Chicago after graduating from the University of California at Los Angeles with a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1981. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 1984.
2024 PROGRAM
The 2024 Price Theory Cohort can be found here. The agenda can be found .