Jens Hainmueller

Jens Hainmueller is the Kimberly Glenn Professor of Political Science and Director of Graduate Studies in Stanford’s Department of Political Science. He co-directs the Stanford Immigration Policy Lab (IPL) and is a Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center for Causal Science, the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, and the Europe Center. He is also a member of the Maternal Child Health Research Institute at Stanford’s School of Medicine.

Hainmueller’s research spans statistical methods, causal inference, immigration, and political economy, and he has published 70 articles with over 40,000 citations. Many of his works appear in top journals, including Science, Nature, and PNAS, as well as leading field journals in political science, statistics, economics, and business.

He has developed widely adopted statistical methods—such as synthetic control methods, entropy balancing, average marginal component effects, and GeoMatch algorithms—and created several open-source software packages that support empirical research across disciplines. At Stanford, he teaches course on causal inference and data science.

Hainmueller’s contributions have been recognized with various awards, including the Gosnell Prize for Excellence in Political Methodology, the Warren Miller Prize, the Robert H. Durr Award, and the Emerging Scholar Award from the Society of Political Methodology. He is an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, an elected Fellow of the Society of Political Methodology, and holds an honorary degree from the European University Institute (EUI).

He completed his PhD at Harvard University, with additional studies at the London School of Economics, Brown University, and the University of Tuebingen. Before joining Stanford, he was a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

selected publications

Working Paper

A Response to Recent Critiques of Hainmueller, Mummolo and Xu (2019) on Estimating Conditional Relationships

Jens Hainmueller, Jiehan Liu, Ziyi Liu, Jonathan Mummolo, and Yiqing Xu

2025

arXiv Preprint

DOI Bib HTML PDF

@unpublished{hainmueller2025responserecentcritiqueshainmueller,
  title = {A Response to Recent Critiques of Hainmueller, Mummolo and Xu (2019) on Estimating Conditional Relationships},
  author = {Hainmueller, Jens and Liu, Jiehan and Liu, Ziyi and Mummolo, Jonathan and Xu, Yiqing},
  note = {arXiv Preprint},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2502.05717},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2502.05717},
}

Nat. Hum. Behav.

The Impact of Private Hosting on the Integration of Ukrainian Refugees

Michael Herpell, Moritz Marbach, Niklas Harder, Anastasiya Orlova, Dominik Hangartner, and Jens Hainmueller

Nature Human Behaviour, 2025

DOI Bib HTML PDF

@article{herpell2024privatehosting,
  title = {The Impact of Private Hosting on the Integration of Ukrainian Refugees},
  author = {Herpell, Michael and Marbach, Moritz and Harder, Niklas and Orlova, Anastasiya and Hangartner, Dominik and Hainmueller, Jens},
  year = {2025},
  month = {Forthcoming},
  journal = {Nature Human Behaviour},
  doi = {10.31235/osf.io/zkpb7},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/zkpb7},
}

AJPS

“Welcome to France.” Can mandatory integration contracts foster immigrant integration?

Mathilde Emeriau, Jens Hainmueller, Dominik Hangartner, and David Laitin

American Journal of Political Science, 2025

DOI Bib HTML PDF

@article{emeriau2022welcome,
  title = {``Welcome to France.'' Can mandatory integration contracts foster immigrant integration?},
  author = {Emeriau, Mathilde and Hainmueller, Jens and Hangartner, Dominik and Laitin, David},
  year = {2025},
  month = {Forthcoming},
  journal = {American Journal of Political Science},
  doi = {10.31235/osf.io/ha3jd},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/ha3jd},
}

JRSS A

Does Ad Hoc Language Training Improve the Economic Integration of Refugees? Evidence from Germany’s Response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis

Moritz Marbach, Ehsan Vallizadeh, Niklas Harder, Dominik Hangartner, and Jens Hainmueller

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A, 2025

DOI Bib HTML PDF

@article{marbach2024language,
  title = {Does Ad Hoc Language Training Improve the Economic Integration of Refugees? Evidence from Germany's Response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis},
  author = {Marbach, Moritz and Vallizadeh, Ehsan and Harder, Niklas and Hangartner, Dominik and Hainmueller, Jens},
  year = {2025},
  month = {Forthcoming},
  journal = {Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A},
  doi = {10.1093/jrsssa/qnae106},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/jrsssa/qnae106},
}

Working Paper

Does Access to Citizenship Confer Socio-Economic Returns? Evidence from a Randomized Control Design

Jens Hainmueller, Elisa Cascardi, Michael Hotard, Rey Koslowski, Duncan Lawrence, Vasil Yasenov, and David Laitin

2024

IZA Discussion Paper No. 16173

Bib HTML PDF

@unpublished{hainmueller2024citizenship,
  title = {Does Access to Citizenship Confer Socio-Economic Returns? Evidence from a Randomized Control Design},
  author = {Hainmueller, Jens and Cascardi, Elisa and Hotard, Michael and Koslowski, Rey and Lawrence, Duncan and Yasenov, Vasil and Laitin, David},
  year = {2024},
  note = {IZA Discussion Paper No. 16173},
  url = {https://ssrn.com/abstract=4464586},
}

Nature

Europeans’ support for refugees of varying background is stable over time

Kirk Bansak, Jens Hainmueller, and Dominik Hangartner

Nature, 2023

DOI Bib HTML PDF

@article{bansak2023europeans,
  title = {Europeans’ support for refugees of varying background is stable over time},
  author = {Bansak, Kirk and Hainmueller, Jens and Hangartner, Dominik},
  journal = {Nature},
  volume = {620},
  number = {7975},
  pages = {849--854},
  year = {2023},
  publisher = {Springer Nature},
  doi = {10.1038/s41586-023-06257-3},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06257-3},
}

Political Analysis

Combining outcome-based and preference-based matching: A constrained priority mechanism

Avidit Acharya, Kirk Bansak, and Jens Hainmueller

Political Analysis, 2022

Gosnell Prize DOI Bib HTML PDF

Gosnell Prize for Excellence in Political Methodology awarded for the best work in political methodology presented at any political science conference during the preceding year (https://polmeth.org/gosnell-prize).

@article{acharya2022combining,
  title = {Combining outcome-based and preference-based matching: A constrained priority mechanism},
  author = {Acharya, Avidit and Bansak, Kirk and Hainmueller, Jens},
  journal = {Political Analysis},
  volume = {30},
  number = {1},
  pages = {89--112},
  year = {2022},
  publisher = {Cambridge University Press},
  doi = {10.1017/pan.2021.22},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1017/pan.2021.22},
}

Science

Improving refugee integration through data-driven algorithmic assignment

Kirk Bansak, Jeremy Ferwerda, Jens Hainmueller, Andrew Dillon, Dominik Hangartner, Duncan Lawrence, and Jeremy Weinstein

Science, 2018

DOI Bib HTML PDF

@article{bansak2018improving,
  title = {Improving refugee integration through data-driven algorithmic assignment},
  author = {Bansak, Kirk and Ferwerda, Jeremy and Hainmueller, Jens and Dillon, Andrew and Hangartner, Dominik and Lawrence, Duncan and Weinstein, Jeremy},
  journal = {Science},
  volume = {359},
  number = {6373},
  pages = {325--329},
  year = {2018},
  publisher = {American Association for the Advancement of Science},
  doi = {10.1126/science.aao4408},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao4408},
}

Science

How economic, humanitarian, and religious concerns shape European attitudes toward asylum seekers

Kirk Bansak, Jens Hainmueller, and Dominik Hangartner

Science, 2016

DOI Bib HTML PDF

@article{bansak2016economic,
  title = {How economic, humanitarian, and religious concerns shape European attitudes toward asylum seekers},
  author = {Bansak, Kirk and Hainmueller, Jens and Hangartner, Dominik},
  journal = {Science},
  volume = {354},
  number = {6309},
  pages = {217--222},
  year = {2016},
  publisher = {American Association for the Advancement of Science},
  doi = {  10.1126/science.aag2147  },
  url = {   https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aag2147 },
}

Political Analysis

Causal inference in conjoint analysis: Understanding multidimensional choices via stated preference experiments

Jens Hainmueller, Daniel J Hopkins, and Teppei Yamamoto

Political Analysis, 2014

Miller Prize DOI Bib HTML PDF

Miller Prize for best work appearing in Political Analysis the preceding year (https://polmeth.org/miller-prize).

@article{hainmueller2014causal,
  title = {Causal inference in conjoint analysis: Understanding multidimensional choices via stated preference experiments},
  author = {Hainmueller, Jens and Hopkins, Daniel J and Yamamoto, Teppei},
  journal = {Political Analysis},
  volume = {22},
  number = {1},
  pages = {1--30},
  year = {2014},
  publisher = {Cambridge University Press},
  doi = {10.1093/pan/mpt024  },
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpt024  },
}

Political Analysis

Entropy balancing for causal effects: A multivariate reweighting method to produce balanced samples in observational studies

Jens Hainmueller

Political Analysis, 2012

Miller Prize DOI Bib HTML PDF

Miller Prize for best work appearing in Political Analysis the preceding year (https://polmeth.org/miller-prize).

@article{hainmueller2012entropy,
  title = {Entropy balancing for causal effects: A multivariate reweighting method to produce balanced samples in observational studies},
  author = {Hainmueller, Jens},
  journal = {Political Analysis},
  volume = {20},
  number = {1},
  pages = {25--46},
  year = {2012},
  publisher = {Cambridge University Press},
  doi = {10.1093/pan/mpr025},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpr025},
}

JASA

Synthetic control methods for comparative case studies: Estimating the effect of California’s tobacco control program

Alberto Abadie, Alexis Diamond, and Jens Hainmueller

Journal of the American Statistical Association, 2010

Gosnell Prize DOI Bib HTML PDF

@article{abadie2010synthetic,
  title = {Synthetic control methods for comparative case studies: Estimating the effect of California’s tobacco control program},
  author = {Abadie, Alberto and Diamond, Alexis and Hainmueller, Jens},
  journal = {Journal of the American Statistical Association},
  volume = {105},
  number = {490},
  pages = {493--505},
  year = {2010},
  publisher = {Taylor and Francis},
  doi = {10.1093/pan/mpr025},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpr025},
}