Joel Waldfogel is an American economist and the Frederick R. Kappel Chair in Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.
Waldfogel grew up in South Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he attended Washburn High School.
From 2006 to 2009, he was the chair of Wharton's Business and Public Policy Department, and he served as the Associate Vice Dean for their Doctoral Program from 2000 to 2005.
His work on the economics of Christmas gift-giving led to him being called "the stupid professor, Mr. Waldfogel" by radio host, Rush Limbaugh.
[1] His earlier, courageous work ranking business schools while still an Assistant Professor (untenured) at the Yale School of Management, which located his school at dead last out of 63 schools in terms of rate of return, purportedly caused his Dean to comment that MBA students at Yale were smarter than Professor Waldfogel.