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Nicholas A. Bloom

Nicholas A. Bloom
Professor (by courtesy), Economics
NicholasA.Bloom
Professor of Economics (by courtesy), Professor of Economics, School of Humanities and Sciences 
Academic Area: 
Economics

Research Statement

Nick Bloom's research interests focus on measuring and explaining management practices across firms and countries. He has been collecting data from thousands of manufacturing firms, retailers, schools and hospitals across countries, to develop a quantitative basis for management research. Recently he has also been running management field experiments in India to identify clearly causal links between management and performance. A second area of research is on the causes and consequences of uncertainty, arising from events such as the credit crunch, the 9/11 terrorist attack and the Cuban Missile crisis. He also works on innovation and IT, examining factors that effect this such as tax, trade and regulation.

Bio

Nick Bloom is a Professor in the department of economics and Professor, by courtesy, at the Graduate School of Business. He is also the Co-Director of the Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and a fellow of the Centre for Economic Performance, and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

Nick was an undergraduate in Cambridge, a masters student at Oxford, and a PhD student at University College London. While completing his PhD he worked part-time at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a London based tax think-tank. After completing his PhD Nick worked as a business tax policy advisor to the UK Treasury, and then joined McKinsey & Company as a management consultant. In 2003 he moved to the London School of Economics to focus on research, before joining Stanford University in 2005.

Professor Bloom’s research focuses on measuring and explaining management practices. He has been working with McKinsey & Company as part of a long-run effort to collect management data from over 10,000 firms across industries and countries. The aim is to build an empirical basis for understanding what factors drive differences in management practices across regions, industries and countries, and how this determines firm and national performance. More recently he has also been working with Accenture on running management experiments. He also works on understanding the impacts of large uncertainty shocks–such as the credit crunch, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Cuban Missile crisis–on the US economy, for which he won the Frisch Medal in 2010.

Nick lives on Stanford campus with his wife and three children. As a born and bred Londoner, married to a Scottish wife, with kids attending US schools, he lives in a multi-lingual English household.

Academic Degrees

  • PhD, University College London, 2001
  • Masters of Philosophy, Oxford University, St. Peters College, 1996
  • BA, Cambridge University, Fitzwilliam College, 1994

Academic Appointments

  • At Stanford since 2005.

Courses Taught

Degree Courses

2010-11

The economies of the world are ever more closely linked. Record levels of international trade and investment are achieved every year. Cross-border mergers and acquisitions are booming. The foreign exchange markets handle trillions of dollars of...