James Joseph Heckman (born 19 April 1944) is an American economist and Nobel laureate. He is the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and director at the Center for the Economics of Human Development at the University of Chicago, and a senior research fellow at the American Bar Foundation.Heckman shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2000 with Daniel McFadden for his pioneering work in econometrics and microeconomics.