Koichiro Ito is a Professor at University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. He received a BA from Kyoto University, an MA from University of British Columbia, and a PhD from UC Berkeley. Prior to joining University of Chicago, he was a SIEPR Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University and an Assistant Professor at Boston University.
His research expertise is energy and environmental economics, where much of his work examines questions in industrial organization, focusing on how firms, consumers, and regulators interact in energy and environmental markets. His work on consumers examines questions such as how electricity users respond to nonlinear and dynamic pricing, and how willingness to pay for clean air can be inferred from consumer behavior in the air purifier market in China. He also studies firms in energy and environmental markets, including how firms respond to dynamic incentives in sequential electricity markets and how they strategically react to attribute-based regulation in automobile markets. To address these questions, his research uses a variety of methods, including randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental research designs, and structural estimation.
His research has appeared in internationally recognized journals, including American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economics and Statistics, American Economic Journal, and Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.
He is a recipient of the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities and the Nikkei Prize for his book, The Power of Data Analysis: How to Approach Causality, published by Kobunsha in April 2017. The original book was published in Japanese and then has been translated to Korean and Taiwanees. He is also a recipient of Ishikawa Prize from the Japanese Economic Association in 2020 and the Jiro Enjoji Memorial Prize by Nikkei Inc. in 2024. In 2025, he received the JSPS Prize from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, which recognizes twenty-five outstanding young scholars across all academic disciplines—including medicine, natural sciences, engineering, humanities, and social sciences—as well as the Japan Academy Medal, which further selects six distinguished scholars from among the JSPS Prize recipients.
Professor Ito is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Faculty Affiliate at the E2e Project, a Faculty Fellow at Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, a Fellow at the International Growth Centre, and a Research Fellow at the Graduate School of Economics at Kyoto University. He serves as a member of the Board of Editors for American Economic Review and an associate editor of Japanese Economic Review.
His research expertise is energy and environmental economics, where much of his work examines questions in industrial organization, focusing on how firms, consumers, and regulators interact in energy and environmental markets. His work on consumers examines questions such as how electricity users respond to nonlinear and dynamic pricing, and how willingness to pay for clean air can be inferred from consumer behavior in the air purifier market in China. He also studies firms in energy and environmental markets, including how firms respond to dynamic incentives in sequential electricity markets and how they strategically react to attribute-based regulation in automobile markets. To address these questions, his research uses a variety of methods, including randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental research designs, and structural estimation.
His research has appeared in internationally recognized journals, including American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economics and Statistics, American Economic Journal, and Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.
He is a recipient of the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities and the Nikkei Prize for his book, The Power of Data Analysis: How to Approach Causality, published by Kobunsha in April 2017. The original book was published in Japanese and then has been translated to Korean and Taiwanees. He is also a recipient of Ishikawa Prize from the Japanese Economic Association in 2020 and the Jiro Enjoji Memorial Prize by Nikkei Inc. in 2024. In 2025, he received the JSPS Prize from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, which recognizes twenty-five outstanding young scholars across all academic disciplines—including medicine, natural sciences, engineering, humanities, and social sciences—as well as the Japan Academy Medal, which further selects six distinguished scholars from among the JSPS Prize recipients.
Professor Ito is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Faculty Affiliate at the E2e Project, a Faculty Fellow at Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, a Fellow at the International Growth Centre, and a Research Fellow at the Graduate School of Economics at Kyoto University. He serves as a member of the Board of Editors for American Economic Review and an associate editor of Japanese Economic Review.