Thomas J. Kniesner was born in Cleveland, Ohio, he is a first-generation college goer, and received his PhD degree in economics from The Ohio State University. He is a Research Fellow at IZA and Krisher Professor of Economics Emeritus at Syracuse University, where he served as Chair of the Department of Economics. In 2013 Kniesner joined the faculty of Claremont Graduate University, where he has been University Professor, Senior Research Fellow, and Chair of the Department of Economic Sciences.
Kniesner’s specialty is the econometric examination of labor, health, and public economic issues. His interests are labor supply, taxation, workplace regulations, and health care costs and use. He has published articles in over 20 different professional journals including The American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Economic Literature, Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics, Journal of Monetary Economics, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Labour Economics, International Economic Review, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Health Policy, Politics and Law, Health Affairs, The Economics of Neuroscience, and Regulation. He is the co-author of seven books, including Labor Economics: Theory, Evidence, and Policy, Simulating Workplace Safety Policy, The Law and Economics of Workers’ Compensation Insurance, and The Effects of Recent Tax Reforms on Labor Supply. He is has served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Human Resources, Co-Editor of Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics, Associate Editor of the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Benefit Cost Analysis.
Before coming to the Claremont Graduate University, Kniesner was on the faculty of Indiana University’s Department of Economics, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Department of Economics, Duke University’s Institute for Policy Studies, and Syracuse University, where he served as the chair of the Department of Economics during 2002–2006 and where he is Krisher Professor of Economics Emeritus. Kniesner has also served as the Senior Labor Economist on the staff of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers. He has lived in Japan where he was Visiting Scholar at Keio University, in Australia where he was Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University’s Department of Statistics of the Faculties and Department of Economics of the Research School of the Social Sciences, and in the Netherlands where he was visiting Scholar at the CentER for Economic Research of Tilburg University. More recently, Kniesner has been a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution on War Revolution and Peace and University College London, a Visiting Research Fellow in the Division of Health Services and Policy Research of Eli Lilly and Company, and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Center for Risk Analysis. During Spring 2001 he was a Visiting Fellow at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Kniesner is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and has received the University of Mississippi’s Otho Smith Medallion for service to the economics profession. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Economics Department of The Ohio State University and on the Board of the Society for Benefit Cost Analysis. His biography has appeared in Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in America, Men of Achievement, Who’s Who in the South and Southwest, Who’s Who in the Midwest, Who’s Who in American Education, and Who’s Who of Emerging Leaders in America. In 2004 Kniesner was elected to the National Academy of Social Insurance.
Co-Authored with W. Kip Viscusi. “Promoting Equity Through Equitable Risk Tradeoffs,” Journal of Benefit Cost Analysis, Spring 2023(1), pp. 8-34.
“Behavioral Economics and the Value of a Statistical Life,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Special Issue: Risk Guideposts for a Safer Society,” June 2019, 28 (2-3), pp. 207-217.
Co-Authored with James P. Ziliak. “Panel Econometrics of Labor Market Outcomes,” in Badi H. Baltagi (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Panel Data, Oxford University Press, 2015, Chapter 19, pp. 583-607.
Co-Authored with Christopher A. Rohlfs and Ryan Sullivan. “New Estimates of the Value of a Statistical Life Using Air Bag Regulations as a Quasi-Experiment,” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, February 2015, 7(1), pp. 331-359.
Co-Authored with John D. Leeth. “Regulating Occupational and Product Risks,” in: Machina, M. J. and Viscusi, W. Kip (eds.), Handbook and the Economics of Risk and Uncertainty, Volume 1, 2014, Amsterdam: Elsevier BV, pp. 493-600.
Co-Authored with W. Kip Viscusi, and James P. Ziliak, “Willingness to Accept Equals Willingness to Pay for Labor Market Estimates of the Value of Statistical Life,” the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, June 2014, 48(3), pp. 187-205.
Co-Authored with W. Kip Viscusi, Christopher Woock, and James P. Ziliak. “The Value of a Statistical Life: Evidence from Panel Data,” Review of Economics and Statistics, February 2012, 94(1), pp. 74-87.
Co-Authored with W. Kip Viscusi, and James P. Ziliak. “Policy Relevant Heterogeneity in the Value of Statistical Life: New Evidence from Panel Data Quantile Regressions,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, February 2010, 40(1), 15–31.
Co-Authored with James P. Ziliak. “Estimating Life-Cycle Labor Supply Tax Effects,” Journal of Political Economy, April 1999, 107(2), pp. 326–359.