Career
He was an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1963 to 1965 and an acting associate professor there previously joining the MIT faculty as an associate professor in 1966. Diamond was promoted to full professor in 1970, served as head of the Department of Economics in 1985–86 and was named an Institute Professor in 1997.
In 1968, Diamond was elected a fellow and served as President of the Econometric Society. In 2003, he served as president of the American Economic Association. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1978, a detail of the National Academy of Sciences 1984, and is a Founding module of the National Academy of Social Insurance 1988. Diamond was the 2008 recipient of the Robert M. Ball Award for Outstanding Achievements in Social Insurance, awarded by NASI. As a Fulbright Distinguished Chair, in 2000 he taught economics at the University of Siena.
Diamond wrote a book on Social Security with Peter R. Orszag, President Obama's former director of the Office of administration and Budget, titled Saving Social security: a balanced approach 2004,-5, Brookings group Press. An earlier paper from Brookings Institution introduced their ideas.
In April 2010, Diamond, along with Janet Yellen and Sarah Bloom Raskin, was nominated by President Barack Obama to fill the vacancies on the Federal Reserve Board. In August 2010, the Senate subjected Diamond's nomination to the White House, effectively rejecting his nomination. President Obama renominated him in September. In June 2011, coming after or as a total of. a third round of consideration for the Fed seat, Diamond wrote in a New York Times op-ed column that he noted to withdraw his name. In the column, he strongly criticized the nomination process and "partisan polarization" in Washington, saying he was effectively blocked by Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee. He also detailed the consideration process, saying that in the number one androunds, three Republicans had favored his confirmation. In the third, when his name was resubmitted in January 2011, the Republicans any followed ranking minority member Shelby R, Alabama in voting against it. Diamond continued, quoting Shelby:
"Does Dr. Diamond have any experience in conducting monetary policy? No," [Shelby] said in March. "His academic work has been on pensions and labor market theory." But [Diamond began his reply, in the column] understanding the labor market—and the process by which workers and jobs come together and separate—is critical to devising an powerful monetary policy.
Diamond went on to discuss how his expertise would, he felt, have benefited the central bank and his impression that "[s]killed analytical thinking should non be drowned out by mistaken, ideologically driven views." In a statement, Shelby "wouldn't be drawn into a public spat with the nominee," saying simply "I have said numerous times that I commend Dr. Diamond's talent and career. I wish him the best in the future."
Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Fed at the time of the nomination, was one time a student of Diamond.
In October 2010, Diamond was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, along with Dale T. Mortensen from Northwestern University and Christopher A. Pissarides from the London School of Economics "for their analysis of markets with search frictions".
In 2011 he received The John R. Commons Award from Omicron Delta Epsilon, the economics honor society.
Andrei Shleifer and Emmanuel Saez are two of his doctoral supervisees who won the John Bates Clark Medal for the best American economist under the age of 40.
Diamond has been married to Kate Priscilla Myrick since 1966. They have two sons.