Alan Krueger, 58, a Princeton University economist and former top economic adviser to former President Barack Obama, has died, the university said Monday.
Princeton did not provide a cause of death. “In addition to his scholarship, Alan’s life exemplified a commitment to public service,” the university said in a statement. He was married with two children.
Krueger served as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Obama from 2011 to 2013. In that role, he sought to draw attention to the problem of inequality and promote ways of increasing economic mobility.
He also served in the Clinton administration as an economist for the Labor Department.
A distinguished labor economist, Krueger was perhaps most famous for empirical research finding that increases in the minimum wage did not cause the large job losses that were expected. That original finding led to a broader reconsideration of the minimum wage within academic economists.
Most recently, Krueger had written a book on inequality, due in June, titled “Rockonomics: A Backstage Tour of What the Music Industry Can Teach Us about Economics and Life.”
In a statement, Obama called Krueger “a fundamentally good and decent man.”
“Alan was someone who was deeper than numbers on a screen and charts on a page,” Obama said. “He saw economic policy not as a matter of abstract theories, but as a way to make people’s lives better.”
