Benjamin F. Jones

After completing his Ph.D., Jones joined the Kellogg School of Management, becoming the Gordon and Llura Gund Family Professor in Entrepreneurship in 2014. He has been a courtesy member of Northwestern University’s political science department since 2005 and affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research since 2005. In 2013, he was appointed as Faculty Director of Kellogg Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative. He is also affiliated with the Brookings Institution.

Jones served as the Senior Economist for Macroeconomics at the White House Council of Economic Advisers during 2010 and 2011.

In 2005, in a paper entitled 'The Burden of Knowledge and the 'Death of the Renaissance Man': Is Innovation Getting Harder?', Jones presented the Burden of Knowledge theory. This theory considers what happens if the advance of scientific and technological knowledge imposes an increasing educational burden on successive generations of innovators. This theory has been used to explain numerous shifts in the nature of innovation, including the rising age at which scientists and inventors make major contributions, rising specialization and teamwork in science and invention, and the increasing difficulty of advancing productivity growth in the economy.

In the beginning of his career, Jones's research was focused on innovation, national leadership, and economic growth. Towards the late 2000s, his research expanded to consider how factors like climate and education impact the wealth and poverty of nations. The relationship between age and breakthrough innovations is another recurring topic in his research.

From 1997 to 1998, Jones worked as Special Assistant to Lawrence Summers at the U.S. Department of Treasury. Jones received a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 2003, studying under doctoral advisors Daron Acemoglu, Abhijit Banerjee, and Sendhil Mullainathan.

Jones graduated from Princeton University in 1995 with a B.S.E in Aerospace Engineering. He received there the Pyne Prize. Jones was then a Rhodes Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford University, receiving an M.Phil in Economics in 1997. In 1996, he taught at the Kazakhstan Institute for Management and Economic Progress before returning to the United States.

Benjamin Felt Jones (born 1972) is an American economist and professor at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Jones's research is mainly focused on innovation and economic development. He has worked as an economic advisor in the U.S. Treasury and the White House.