Richard B. Freeman is the Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics at Harvard University and is currently serving as Faculty Co-Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School.Ā He also directs the Science and Engineering Workforce Project at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and is a Senior Research Fellow in Labour Markets at the London School of Economicsā Centre for Economic Performance. Freeman is Co-Director of the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities.Ā Freemanās research interests cover a range of topics in modern economics, including: changes in the job market, the effects of immigration and trade, comparative economic institutions, trade unions, and income distribution and equality in the marketplace, the economics of science and engineering, and the role of labor in the economic development of China.
A prolific writer, Freeman has written numerous books and edited volumes. In What Workers Want (with Joel Rogers, co-published with Russell Sage Foundation, 2nd Edition 2007), Freeman surveys American employees to determine their preferences regarding participation in the workplace. Freeman concludes that workers, more than anything, want to be heard by management and contribute to the overall success of the organization. His other recent books include: America Works (Russell Sage 2007); Shared Capitalism at Work; (with Doug Kruse and Joseph Blasi, University of Chicago Press 2010); and Science and Engineering Careers in the United States (edited with Daniel Goroff, University of Chicago Press 2009).
He received the Mincer Lifetime Achievement Prize from the Society of Labor Economics in 2006. In 2007 he was awarded the IZA Prize in Labor Economics. Freeman is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2016 he received the Global Equity Organization (GEO) Judges Award, honoring exceptional contribution towards the promotion of of global employee share ownership. Also in 2016, he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. He is currently serving on the AAASĀ Initiative for Science and Technology. He has served or is serving on 12Ā panels or boards of the National Academy of Sciences.
