NBER Profile: Erik Hurst.

Erik Hurst is a Research Associate in NBER's Programs on Economic Fluctuations and Growth, Public Economics, and Aging. He is also the V. Duane Rath Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.

Hurst received a B.A. in economics from Clarkson University in 1993, an M.A. from the University of Michigan in 1995, and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1999. He joined Chicago's faculty in 1999. He is also on the board of editors of the AEJ: Macroeconomics.

Hurst's main area of research is household financial behavior. He has studied, for example, the importance of signaling in explaining the conspicuous consumption patterns across races, and the role that parents...