McFadden was natural around Raleigh, North Carolina. He attended a University of Minnesota, where he received the B.S. in Physics at age 19, and a Ph.D. in Behavioral Science (Economics) five years later (1962). Inside 1964, he joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley & focused his locate around areas including guide behavior & a condition of linking economic theory and mensuration. He won a John Bates Clark Medal in 1975. Within 1977, he moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but returned to Berkeley around 1991 because MIT did non have a cost comparisons department. When his go to, McFadden founded a Econometrics Laboratory, which is devoted to technical indicator computation for political economy applications. He remains its director.