We are deeply saddened to report that John Enrico DiNardo, professor of public policy and economics, passed away on August 26 following a long battle with leukemia.
Professor DiNardo received his AB and MPP degrees from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in economics from Princeton University. As a labor economist with interests in unions, wage distributions, and the minimum wage, John's approach to teaching and research was unambiguously focused on high-quality data and the proper use of sophisticated econometric analysis.
In "Applied Econometrics" and "Advanced Program Evaluation," courses he taught regularly at the Ford School, he showed dozens of students how to formulate well-defined and important questions, how to map them to econometric techniques, and how to apply them to real-world data.
"He taught me--and so many others--about the power of numbers," says Michael Barr, dean of the Ford School. "But also about how and why to be humble about their use."
John was a musician and a member of a band of musical economists called the Solonators. He also was a lover of the Harry Potter series, which he read in multiple languages and referenced often in his teaching.
Please join us in extending heartfelt sympathies to John's wife, Jean.
Read more about DiNardo's life and career on his personal and professional websites. For more on DiNardo's teaching philosophy, read Miriam Wasserman's State & Hill article, "DiNardo's 'defense against the dark arts of econometrics.'"