Jean Ensminger

Ensminger trained with paleontologist Louis Leakey in the Olduvai Gorge in Kenya.{{cite news |last1=Sutherland |first1=John |title=What makes the human animal tick? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/feb/14/academicexperts.highereducation |access-date=22 September 2024 |work=The Guardian |date=February 14, 2006}} Her doctoral research focused on the Orma of Kenya. She obtained her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1984.

Ensminger's fieldwork used methods from game theory to study whether human behavior is naturally cooperative or competitive, and to explain how nations became rich or poor. She applied New Institutional Economics to study property rights and transaction costs. Ensminger described how economic incentives influenced social behaviors including religious choices.

Prior to arriving at Caltech, Ensminger taught at Washington University as part of a group assembled by Douglass North, the 1993 Nobel laureate in Economics.{{cite news |title=Introducing Andy Harris: Assistant Professor in Political Science at New York University Abu Dhabi |url=https://gld.gu.se/media/2646/fellow-interview-andy.pdf |access-date=22 September 2024 |work=Governance and Local Development Newsletter |publisher=University of Gothenburg |date=2022}} Her research built on North's work comparing the relative impacts of preferences and costs on institutional change.{{cite news |last1=Joireman |first1=Sandra F. |title=Jean Ensminger. Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation of an African Society (Book Review) |url=https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=polisci-faculty-publications |access-date=22 September 2024 |work=APSA-CP Newsletter 4 |issue=2 |date=1993 |page=8}}

While working on development projects in Kenya, Ensminger became interested in the scope of corruption of World Bank initiatives in the area, and designed methods to quantitate its magnitude.{{cite news |last1=Stoller-Conrad |first1=Jessica |title=Tracing the Path of Corruption |url=https://magazine.caltech.edu/esblog/tracing-the-path-of-corruption |access-date=22 September 2024 |work=Caltech magazine |date=December 13, 2014}}

Ensminger was the first woman head of a division - Humanities and Social Sciences- at Caltech, from 2002 to 2006. As a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in 2006–2007, she compared and contrasted altruism between nomadic Kenyans and urban Americans, and investigated how social networks, information, trust, and economic power impact behaviors.{{cite news |title=Experimenting with Social Norms: Jean Ensminger |url=https://www.russellsage.org/visiting-scholars/jean-ensminger |access-date=22 September 2024 |agency=Russell Sage Foundation |date=2006}}

Ensminger served as President of the Society for Economic Anthropology.

With Joseph Henrich, Ensminger was co–principal investigator of the Roots of Human Sociality Project, which used dictator games and other research tools to study the role of prosociality in bringing change to market institutions.

Ensminger has been asked if her findings, from studying some of the world's poorest people living in subsistence economies, are relevant to industrial societies. She commented, "People are more alike everywhere than most people think."

John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship,{{cite news |title=Jean Ensminger |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/jean-ensminger/ |access-date=22 September 2024 |publisher=Guggenheim Foundation}} 2011

• Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation of an African Society, Cambridge University Press, 1996Reviews of Making a Market:
• {{cite journal | last=Barnett | first=Tony | last2=Kodama | first2=Yuka | last3=Ensminger | first3=Jean | title=Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation of an African Society. | journal=The Economic Journal | volume=104 | issue=427 | date=1994 | doi=10.2307/2235468 | page=1467}}
• {{cite journal | last=Rigby | first=Peter | title=SOCIAL/CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation of an African Society . Jean Ensminger | journal=American Anthropologist | volume=96 | issue=2 | date=1994 | issn=0002-7294 | doi=10.1525/aa.1994.96.2.02a00190 | pages=448–449}}
• {{cite journal | last=Woods | first=Dwayne | title=Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation of an African Society. By Jean Ensminger. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. 212p. $49.95. | journal=American Political Science Review | volume=88 | issue=2 | date=1994 | issn=0003-0554 | doi=10.2307/2944761 | pages=493–494}}
• {{cite journal | last=Smith | first=James H. | title=Making a Market: the institutional transformation of an African society by Jean Ensminger Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xv+212. £30.00. $49.95. | journal=The Journal of Modern African Studies | volume=33 | issue=4 | date=1995 | issn=0022-278X | doi=10.1017/S0022278X00021558 | pages=708–710}}
• {{cite journal | last=van Donge | first=Jan Kees | last2=Ensminger | first2=Jean | title=Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation of an African Society. | journal=Man | volume=29 | issue=3 | date=1994 | doi=10.2307/2804379 | page=738}}
• {{cite journal | last=Schaefer | first=Donald | title=Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation of an African Society. By Jean Ensminger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. XV, 212. $49.95. | journal=The Journal of Economic History | volume=53 | issue=3 | date=1993 | issn=0022-0507 | doi=10.1017/S002205070001367X | pages=678–679}}
• {{cite news |last1=Little |first1=Daniel |title=Heuristics for a mechanisms-based methodology |url=https://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/search?q=ensminger |access-date=22 September 2024 |work=Understanding Society |date=September 4, 2014}}
• {{cite news |last1=Joireman |first1=Sandra F. |title=Jean Ensminger. Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation of an African Society (Book Review) |url=https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=polisci-faculty-publications |access-date=22 September 2024 |work=APSA-CP Newsletter 4 |issue=2 |date=1993 |page=8}}
• Experimenting with Social Norms: Fairness and Punishment in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Russell Sage Foundation, 2014Reviews for Experimenting with Social Norms:
• {{cite news |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45199849 |title=Review (untitled) |last=Lacour |first=Pierre |work=Eastern Economic Journal |volume=43 |number=2 |date=Spring 2017}}
• {{cite journal | title=Book Reviews | journal=Journal of Economic Literature | volume=53 | issue=2 | date=2015-06-01 | issn=0022-0515 | doi=10.1257/jel.53.2.360 | pages=360–382| hdl=11380/1068301 | hdl-access=free }}
• {{cite journal | last=Chiu | first=Chi-Yue | last2=Kwan | first2=Letty Yan-Yee | title=Coevolution of Market Integration and Fairness Norms | journal=PsycCRITIQUES | volume=60 | issue=4 | date=2015-01-26 | doi=10.1037/a0038587 | page=}}
• Theory in Economic Anthropology (ed.), AltaMira Press, 2001Review:{{cite journal | last=Pryor | first=Frederic L | title=Theory in Economic Anthropology | journal=Comparative Economic Studies | volume=48 | issue=3 | date=2006 | issn=0888-7233 | doi=10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100150 | pages=560–561}}

• Detecting Fraud in Development Aid (NBER Working Paper, 2022){{cite web | title= Detecting Fraud in Development Aid |publisher=National Bureau of Economic Research |url=https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30768/w30768.pdf | access-date=2024-09-22}}
• Written Testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade on "Examining Results and Accountability at the World Bank." (2019){{cite web | title=Written Testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade on "Examining Results and Accountability at the World Bank" | url=https://ensminger.sites.caltech.edu/documents/591/1_-Written_testimony_before_the_house....pdf | access-date=2024-09-22}}
• Corruption in Community Driven Development: A Kenyan Case Study with Insights from Indonesia (U4, 2017){{cite web | title=Corruption in Community Driven Development: A Kenyan Case Study with Insights from Indonesia| url=https://ensminger.sites.caltech.edu/documents/592/2_-_Corruption_in_Community_Driven....pdf | access-date=2024-09-22}}
• Culture does account for variation in game behavior. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2012){{cite journal | last=Henrich | first=Joseph | last2=Boyd | first2=Robert | last3=McElreath | first3=Richard | last4=Gurven | first4=Michael | last5=Richerson | first5=Peter J. | last6=Ensminger | first6=Jean | title=Culture does account for variation in game behavior | journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | volume=109 | issue=2 | date=2012-01-10 | issn=1091-6490 | pmid=22219355 | pmc=3258588 | doi=10.1073/pnas.1118607109 | pages=E32–33; author reply E34}}
• Markets, Religion, Community Size, and the Evolution of Fairness and Punishment. (Science, 2010){{cite journal | last=Henrich | first=Joseph | last2=Ensminger | first2=Jean | last3=McElreath | first3=Richard | title=Markets, religion, community size, and the evolution of fairness and punishment | journal=Science | volume=327 | issue=5972 | date=2010-03-19 | issn=1095-9203 | pmid=20299588 | doi=10.1126/science.1182238 | pages=1480–1484}}
• Costly punishment across human societies. (Science, 2006){{cite journal | last=Henrich | first=Joseph | last2=McElreath | first2=Richard | last3=Barr | first3=Abigail | last4=Ensminger | first4=Jean | last14=Ziker | first14=John | title=Costly punishment across human societies | journal=Science | volume=312 | issue=5781 | date=2006-06-23 | issn=1095-9203 | pmid=16794075 | doi=10.1126/science.1127333 | pages=1767–1770}}
• "Economic man" in cross-cultural perspective: behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies. (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2005){{cite journal | last=Henrich | first=Joseph | last2=Boyd | first2=Robert | last3=Bowles | first3=Samuel | last4=Camerer | first4=Colin | last5=Fehr | first5=Ernst | last6=Gintis | first6=Herbert | last7=McElreath | first7=Richard | last8=Alvard | first8=Michael | last9=Barr | first9=Abigail | last10=Ensminger | first10=Jean | last17=Tracer | first17=David | title="Economic man" in cross-cultural perspective: behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies | journal=The Behavioral and Brain Sciences | volume=28 | issue=6 | date=2005 | issn=0140-525X | pmid=16372952 | doi=10.1017/S0140525X05000142 | pages=795–815; discussion 815–855}}
• 12 Market Integration and Fairness: Evidence from Ultimatum, Dictator, and Public Goods Experiments in East Africa (in Foundations of Human Sociality, 2004){{cite book | last=Henrich | first=Joseph | last2=Boyd | first2=Robert | last3=Bowles | first3=Samuel | last4=Camerer | first4=Colin | last5=Fehr | first5=Ernst | last6=Gintis | first6=Herbert | title=Foundations of Human Sociality | publisher=Oxford University Press | date=2004-03-25 | isbn=978-0-19-926205-2 | doi=10.1093/0199262055.003.0012 | page=}}

{{reflist}}

• [https://ensminger.sites.caltech.edu Caltech faculty page]

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Category:Living people

Category:American anthropologists

Category:Political economists

Category:American social scientists

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)