The University of Nebraska Department of Economics will host the 2026 Nebraska Labor Summit at the College of Business in Lincoln, Nebraska. The summit will focus on empirical research in labor economics and closely related fields.
2026 Keynote Speakers
Martha Bailey is a professor of economics and director of the California Center for Population Research at UCLA. Her research focuses on issues in labor economics, demography and health in the United States, within the long-run perspective of economic history. She is an expert on the economic consequences of War on Poverty programs and directs the LIFE-M project, which links millions of vital records with census data for the early 20th century U.S., and the M-CARE study, which evaluates how more affordable contraception affects the lives of Americans. She was awarded the 2022 Carolyn Shaw Bell Award for furthering the status of women in the economics profession. She has served as an editor of the Journal of Labor Economics and a member of the editorial board of the American Economic Review.
Alexandre Mas is a professor of economics at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. His research on the economics of the labor market has focused on alternative work arrangements, productivity spillovers in the workplace, fairness considerations and norms around pay setting, pay transparency, unemployment, unions, and the effects of credit market disruptions. He served as associate director for economic policy and chief economist at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget in the Executive Office of the President from 2010-11, and as chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor from 2009-10. His awards include the IZA Young Labor Economist Award and Princeton University’s Albert Rees Prize in 2009. He is also co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research Labor Studies program.
Program Committee: Rebecca Jack, Daniel Tannenbaum & Brenden Timpe