William T. Dickens has been named the Schelling Visiting Professor for 2007-2008. He is a senior fellow in the Economic Studies Program at The Brookings Institution. Dickens was formerly a senior economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers; professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley (1980-1995); visiting assistant professor at the Sloan School of Management, M.I.T. (1986); and a consultant for The World Bank.

Dickens is working with Erica Groshen of the NY Federal Reserve Bank, staff of the European Central Bank and collaborators from 13 countries on a study of wage flexibility and its effects on unemployment and inflation. He is also working on extensions of his work with James Flynn on environmental influences on measured intelligence.

Publications include: Black Americans Reduce the Racial IQ Gap: Evidence from Standardization Samples, Psychological Science (2007) with James R. Flynn, How Wages Change: Micro Evidence from the International Wage Flexibility Project, Journal of Economic Perspectives (forthcoming), Heritability Estimates vs. Large Environmental Effects: The IQ Paradox Resolved, with James R. Flynn Psychological Review, April 2001; Urban Problems and Community Development, edited with Ronald F. Ferguson (1999); two papers with George Akerlof and George Perry The Macroeconomics of Low Inflation, and Near-Rational Wage and Price Setting and the Long-Run Phillips Curve, (Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, vol. 1, 1996, and vol. 1, 2000, respectively); Labor and an Integrated Europe edited with Lloyd Ulman and Barry Eichengreen (1993); The Dynamics of Trade and Employment with Laura Tyson and John Zysman (Ballinger, 1988); A Test of Dual Labor Market Theory, with Kevin Lang (American Economic Review, September 1985) and The Economic Consequences of Cognitive Dissonance, with George Akerlof (American Economic Review, June 1982).

Dickens received his B.A. in social studies from Bard College in 1976 and his Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T. in 1981.