Edward P. Lazear, Economist and Presidential Adviser, Dies at 72

Edward P. Lazear, a pioneering labor economist at Stanford University who advised President George W. Bush during the financial crisis, died on Monday, reported The New York Times. He was 72.

He was a widely respected labor economist at Stanford who led President George W. Bush’s economic council during the financial crisis.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, the university stated. It did not release where he died.

Professor Lazear may be best remembered as the founder of a field that has come to be known as personnel economics, which seeks to understand how businesses hire, retain, and pay employees. He also founded the Journal of Labor Economics and the Society of Labor Economists.

But perhaps his most critical job was as chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers when the American financial system buckled in the 2000s after a housing and debt bubble had burst, forcing the federal government to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out financial institutions and rescue a sinking economy.

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