John N. Friedman is an

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this field there are ...

who currently serves as Professor of Economics, Chair of Economics, and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Brown University. He additionally co-directs Opportunity Insights and is a Research Associate of the

National Bureau of Economic Research The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...

Career

Friedman earned an A.B., A.M. and Ph.D. from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. His research interests include

public economics Public economics ''(or economics of the public sector)'' is the study of government policy through the lens of economic efficiency and equity. Public economics builds on the theory of welfare economics and is ultimately used as a tool to improve s ...

and

political economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...

. Friedman was previously an assistant professor of

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...

at Harvard's

Kennedy School of Government The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...

and served as a Special Assistant to

President Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

for Economic Policy within the White House National Economic Council in 2013–2014. He became editor-in-chief of the ''

Journal of Public Economics The ''Journal of Public Economics'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering public economics, with particular emphasis on the application of modern economic theory and methods of quantitative analysis. It provides a forum for discussio ...

'' in 2019. During the

COVID-19 Pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, Friedman co-led a group that developed an economic tracker, the Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker. This presented private-sector data on

economic trend *all the economic indicators that are the subject of economic forecasting **see also: econometrics *general trends in the economy, see: economic history Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. R ...

s more frequently and more rapidly than officially published economic statistics.

Personal life

Friedman is married to Hilary Levy Friedman, a visiting assistant professor of education at Brown. The couple met in the fall of 2002 while they were completing fellowships at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

. They have two sons.

Selected works

* Chetty, Raj, John N. Friedman, Nathaniel Hilger,

Emmanuel Saez Emmanuel Saez (born November 26, 1972) is a French, naturalized American economist who is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. His work, done with Thomas Piketty and Gabriel Zucman, includes tracking the incomes of t ...

, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, and Danny Yagan. "How does your kindergarten classroom affect your earnings? Evidence from Project STAR."

The Quarterly journal of economics ''The Quarterly Journal of Economics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Oxford University Press for the Harvard University Department of Economics. Its current editors-in-chief are Robert J. Barro, Lawrence F. Katz, Nathan N ...

126, no. 4 (2011): 1593–1660. * Chetty, Raj, John N. Friedman, and Jonah E. Rockoff. "Measuring the impacts of teachers II: Teacher value-added and student outcomes in adulthood." American economic review 104, no. 9 (2014): 2633–79. * Chetty, Raj, John N. Friedman, and Jonah E. Rockoff. "Measuring the impacts of teachers I: Evaluating bias in teacher value-added estimates." American Economic Review 104, no. 9 (2014): 2593–2632. * Chetty, Raj, John N. Friedman, Tore Olsen, and Luigi Pistaferri. "Adjustment costs, firm responses, and micro vs. macro labor supply elasticities: Evidence from Danish tax records." The quarterly journal of economics 126, no. 2 (2011): 749–804. * Chetty, Raj, John N. Friedman, Søren Leth-Petersen, Torben Heien Nielsen, and Tore Olsen. "Active vs. passive decisions and crowd-out in retirement savings accounts: Evidence from Denmark." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 129, no. 3 (2014): 1141–1219.

References

American economists Brown University faculty Harvard University alumni Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-economist-stub