Richard B. Freeman

Last updated
Richard B. Freeman
RichardBFreemanHeadShot.JPG
Born (1943-06-29) June 29, 1943 (age 81) [1]
Newburgh, New York
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Dartmouth College (B.A., 1964)
Harvard University (Ph.D., Economics, 1969)
Occupation(s)professor, economist
Academic career
Doctoral
advisor		 John Thomas Dunlop
Doctoral
students		 Alan Krueger
Information at IDEAS / RePEc
Website users.nber.org/~freeman (NBER)
scholar.harvard.edu/freeman (Harvard)

Richard Barry Freeman (born June 29, 1943) is an economist. The Herbert Ascherman Professor of Economics at Harvard University and Co-Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, Freeman is also Senior Research Fellow on Labour Markets at the Centre for Economic Performance, part of the London School of Economics, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the UK's public body funding social science.[ citation needed ] Freeman directs the Science and Engineering Workforce Project (SEWP) at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a network focused on the economics of science, technical, engineering, and IT labor which has received major long-term support from the Sloan Foundation. [ citation needed ]

Contents

Education

He received his B.A. from Dartmouth in 1964 and his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1969 for a thesis titled The Labor Market for College Manpower. [ citation needed ] He studied under Harvard Professor and Dean John T. Dunlop, who became U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Gerald Ford.[ citation needed ]

Contributions

Freeman has written 18 books, edited 29 books and published over 350 published articles on a wide range of subjects including global labor standards, the scientific workforce, the economics of crime, how the internet is transforming labor movements, and historical spurts in the growth of labor unions. [2] Freeman has made several significant but controversial contributions to economics and the field of industrial relations. In What Do Unions Do? (1984), he and his co-author James Medoff presented evidence that countered conventional wisdom in economics when they concluded that “unionism on net probably raises social efficiency” and that “recent trends have brought the level of union density below the optimal level.” [3] Freeman's work on the economic theory of unions has found support in several subsequent studies indicating that in many fields unionized workers have delivered higher levels of productivity than their non-union counterparts. [ citation needed ] Nevertheless, some comparative scholarship indicates that the union advantage in productivity may vary by nation. [ citation needed ] Christos Doucouliagos and Patrice Laroche in an article entitled “What do unions do to productivity?” (2003) indicate that unions significantly lift productivity in U.S. manufacturing, but these authors countered with evidence that unions have had detrimental effects on productivity in the United Kingdom. [4]

Freeman and his collaborators have explored how the tournament model of prizes and funding in the biosciences has favored older researchers and contributed to the degradation of conditions for postdocs and graduate students. [ citation needed ] He has carried out a variety of studies on the internationalization of science, as more than half of the PhDs graduating in science and engineering from U.S. universities in 2003 were foreign born, more than double the rate in 1966. [5]

In his early career, Freeman often faced critique for his book The Overeducated American (1976), which suggested that the U.S. labor market would have vast challenges employing the millions of citizens with college diplomas and advanced degrees from the enormous expansion of higher education after World War II. [ citation needed ] The high-tech boom of the later 1980s and 1990s reassured most observers that expanding higher education was the trusted route to national economic vitality and achieving the dreams for prosperity sought by millions of individuals. However, Freeman's thesis that labor markets will not always be friendly to university-educated workers is enjoying a revival in the early twenty-first century. [6] This re-consideration has gained momentum since the high unemployment and underemployment of college graduates following the Great Recession of 2008 as well as trends in globalization that have led to the off shoring of many jobs done by lawyers, accountants, information technology workers, and other well-educated professionals.

Freeman has made the case that expanding programs for employee ownership [7] and broader-based profit sharing would help reduce inequality in the United States. [ citation needed ] He co-wrote with Joseph R. Blasi and Douglas L. Kruse of Rutgers The Citizen’s Share: Reducing Inequality in the Twenty-first Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), a work that French economist Thomas Piketty credited for tracing how “America used to be based on broad access to wealth and property” and then showing “how to revive” this tradition. [8] Freeman has also written with Kimberly Ann Elliott studies of how human rights vigilantes have generated activism and consumer consciousness about apparel and other consumer products often manufactured under sweatshop labor conditions. [9] Freeman carries out many studies of China's economy, in particular comparative studies of scientific innovation and workforces in China, the United States, and several other nations. [10]

Selected lectures

Selected books

Awards and honors

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Productivity</span> Average measure of the efficiency of production

Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production process, i.e. output per unit of input, typically over a specific period of time. The most common example is the (aggregate) labour productivity measure, one example of which is GDP per worker. There are many different definitions of productivity and the choice among them depends on the purpose of the productivity measurement and data availability. The key source of difference between various productivity measures is also usually related to how the outputs and the inputs are aggregated to obtain such a ratio-type measure of productivity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Feldstein</span> American economist (1939–2019)

Martin Stuart Feldstein was an American economist. He was the George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University and the president emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He served as president and chief executive officer of the NBER from 1978 to 2008. From 1982 to 1984, Feldstein served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and as chief economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan. Feldstein was also a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body the Group of Thirty from 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sendhil Mullainathan</span> American Professor of Computation and Behavioral science

Sendhil Mullainathan is an American professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a professor of Computation and Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business from 2018-2024. He is the author of Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much. He was hired with tenure by Harvard in 2004 after having spent six years at MIT.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erik Brynjolfsson</span> American academic

Erik Brynjolfsson is an American academic, author and inventor. He is the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and a Senior Fellow at Stanford University where he directs the Digital Economy Lab at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, with appointments at SIEPR, the Stanford Department of Economics and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a best-selling author of several books. From 1990 to 2020, he was a professor at MIT.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Card</span> Canadian economist (born 1956)

David Edward Card is a Canadian-American labour economist and the Class of 1950 Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has been since 1997. He was awarded half of the 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for his empirical contributions to labour economics", with Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens jointly awarded the other half.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claudia Goldin</span> American economist

Claudia Dale Goldin is an American economic historian and labor economist. She is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University. In October 2023, she was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for having advanced our understanding of women's labor market outcomes”. The third woman to win the award, she was the first woman to win the award solo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elhanan Helpman</span> Israeli economist

Elhanan Helpman is an Israeli economist who is currently the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade at Harvard University. He is also a Professor Emeritus at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at Tel Aviv University. Helpman is among the thirty most cited economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc.

Maurice Kugler is a Colombian American economist born in 1967. He received his Ph.D. in economics from UC Berkeley in 2000, as well as an M.Sc. (Econ) and a B.Sc. (Econ) both from the London School of Economics. Kugler is professor of public policy in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. Prior to this, he worked as a consultant for the World Bank, where he was senior economist before (2010-2012). Most recently he was principal research scientist and managing director at IMPAQ International.

James Michael "Jim" Poterba, FBA is an American economist who is the Mitsui Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and current National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) president and chief executive officer.

Lawrence Francis Katz is the Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics at Harvard University and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Mohammed Ishaq Nadiri is an Afghan American who is the Jay Gould Professor of Economics at New York University. A former department chair, he was also founder and first director of the C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics. Professor Nadiri was a signatory of the 2001 Bonn meetings where the interim government of Afghanistan was created; a participant in the Tokyo meeting focused on funding Afghanistan’s reconstruction, the White House and UN Security Council meetings during Hamid Karzai’s visit in January 2002, and the Loya Jirga in Kabul in June 2002 that resulted in Mr. Karzai’s election as president. Nadiri served as Senior Economic Advisor to President Karzai. For his services and accomplishments, President Karzai awarded Nadiri with the Ghazi Amanullah Khan, the highest civilian award of Afghanistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economics of participation</span> Umbrella term in the business world

Economics of participation is an umbrella term spanning the economic analysis of worker cooperatives, labor-managed firms, profit sharing, gain sharing, employee ownership, employee stock ownership plans, works councils, codetermination, and other mechanisms which employees use to participate in their firm's decision making and financial results.

Harry Joseph Holzer is an American economist, educator and public policy analyst.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Hunt</span> American economist

Jennifer Hunt is a professor of economics at Rutgers University. She previously served as deputy assistant secretary for microeconomic analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury after serving a term as Chief Economist to the U.S. Secretary of Labor, serving under acting secretary Seth Harris and Secretary Thomas Perez. She is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She has done research in the areas of employment and unemployment policy, immigration, wage inequality, transition economics, crime and corruption. Her past research focused on immigration and innovation in the United States, the U.S. science and engineering workforce, and the 2008-2009 recession in Germany. Her research on immigration has been cited by media in the context of immigration reform legislation, currently under consideration by the U.S. Congress. Her contemporary research focuses primarily on the geographic composition of technology, discrimination, and unemployment.

William R. Kerr is the Dimitri V. D'Arbeloff – MBA Class of 1955 Professor of Business Administration professor at Harvard Business School, where he is a co-director of Harvard's Managing the Future of Work project and faculty chair of the Launching New Ventures program for executive education.

Joseph R. Blasi is an American economic sociologist, currently a Distinguished Professor and the J. Robert Beyster Professor at Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations. He graduated with an Ed.D. from Harvard University.

Stefanie Stantcheva is a French economist who has served as the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University since 2021. She has been a member of the Conseil d’Analyse Économique since 2018. In 2018, she was described by The Economist as one of the best young economists of the decade.

Alice Orcutt Nakamura is an American-Canadian economist and writer. She is a fellow of the Canadian Economics Association, which is the highest honour of the association. She is currently a professor of finance and management science at the University of Alberta where she has taught since 1972. Alice Nakamura was also the first female president of the Canadian Economics Association in 1994–1995. She was also the president of the International Association for Research on Income and Wealth from 2014 to 2016.

Lisa Blau Kahn is a professor of economics at the University of Rochester. Her research focuses on labor economics with interests in organization, education, and contract theory. From 2014 to 2018, she served as an associate professor of economics at Yale School of Management and as an assistant professor of economics at Yale School of Management from 2008 to 2014. From 2010 to 2011, Kahn served as the senior economist for labor and education policy on President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers.

Robert Christopher Feenstra is an American economist, academic and author. He is the C. Bryan Cameron Distinguished Chair in International Economics at University of California, Davis. He served as the director of the International Trade and Investment Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1992 to 2016. He also served as Associate Dean in the Social Sciences at the University of California, Davis from 2014 to 2019.

References

  1. ↑ CV: Richard B. Freeman, Harvard University, http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/freeman/files/rbf_full_cv_12-10-15.pdf?m=1449701139
  2. ↑ CV: Richard B. Freeman, Harvard University, http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/freeman/files/rbf_full_cv_12-10-15.pdf?m=1449701139; Richard B. Freeman (2007), America Works: Critical Thoughts on the Exceptional U.S. Labor Market, New York: Russell Sage; Kimberly Ann Elliott and Richard B. Freeman (2003), Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization? Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute; Richard B. Freeman (1998), "Spurts in Union Growth: Defining Moments and Social Processes" in Bordo, Michael D., Claudia Goldin, and Eugene N. White (Eds.),The Defining Moment, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  3. ↑ Freeman, Richard B. and James Medoff (1984). What Do Unions Do, New York: Basic Books, pp. 247 and 250.
  4. ↑ Doucouliagos, Christos; Laroche, Patrice (2003). "What do unions do to productivity? A meta-analysis". Industrial Relations. 42 (4): 650–691. doi:10.1111/1468-232X.00310.
  5. ↑ Freeman, Richard B. and Daniel L. Goroff (2009). “Introduction.” Science and Engineering Careers in the United States: An Analysis of Markets and Employment, Chicago: NBER and University of Chicago Press, p14.
  6. ↑ Uchitelle, Louis (January 13, 2005). "College Degree Still Pays, but It's Leveling Off". New York Times . p. C1.
  7. ↑ Freeman, Richard (2015). "Who owns the robots rules the world". IZA World of Labor. doi:10.15185/izawol.5. hdl: 10419/125230 . Retrieved 2 May 2021.
  8. ↑ Quote from cover of Freeman, Richard B., Joseph R. Blasi and Douglas L. Kruse,The Citizen’s Share: Reducing Inequality in the Twenty-first Century, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.
  9. ↑ Elliott, Kimberly Ann, and Richard B. Freeman, "White Hats or Don Quixotes? Human Rights Vigilantes in the Global Economy," in Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the Twenty-First Century, Richard B. Freeman, Joni Hersch and Lawrence Mishel, editors, University of Chicago Press, 2004.
  10. ↑ Freeman RB, Huang W. "China's Great Leap Forward in Science and Engineering". In: Global Mobility of Research Scientists: The Economics of Who Goes Where and Why. Aldo Geuna (Editor), Academic Press. Forthcoming 2015. And Freeman RB. "Immigration, International Collaboration, and Innovation: Science and Technology Policy in the Global Economy". In: Innovation Policy and the Economy. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2015. pp. 153-175.
  11. ↑ "Mincer Award Winners 2006". The Society of Labour Economists. Retrieved 28 June 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.