John N. Friedman

John N. Friedman serves as the inaugural Vascellaro Family Dean of the Thomas J. Watson Jr. School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University, and the Briger Family Distinguished Professor of Economics and International and Public Affairs. His research brings together theory and data, harnessing the power of large administrative datasets to yield policy-relevant insights on taxation, healthcare, education quality, inequality, and social mobility.

His research interests span multiple disciplines:

• Public Economics and Political Economy
• Inequality & Poverty
• International Institutions
• Race, Identity & Ethnicity
• Social Movements
• Urban Policies & Politics
• Urbanization

Friedman is a founding co-director of Opportunity Insights, where his work is rooted in big-data analysis focused on inequality, poverty, education, and tax policy. Some of his earliest pathbreaking work focused on the long-term effects of education, including his finding that an excellent 6th-grade teacher can increase the lifetime earnings of a single class of students by nearly $1.5 million - a finding cited by President Obama in his 2012 State of the Union Address. In 2020, Friedman and the Opportunity Insights team created the Economic Tracker, which helped guide governments through the depths of the COVID-19 economic crisis. His recent work has focused on upward mobility in higher education, particularly on how admissions policies could increase social mobility at selective private universities and assessments of standardized testing in admissions.

Friedman has received numerous professional recognitions:

• Faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research
• Co-editor of the American Economic Review
• President-elect of the Eastern Economic Association
• Previously served as Chair of the Economics Department at Brown (2021-2024)

Friedman has been involved in significant grant-funded research projects through Opportunity Insights and has collaborated extensively with leading economists like Raj Chetty and David Deming. He has also served in government roles, including as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy at the White House's National Economic Council during the Obama administration (2013-2014).

His research has been widely influential, with applications in educational policy, tax policy, and understanding social mobility. The Opportunity Atlas, which he co-created, has become a key resource for understanding the childhood roots of social mobility across the United States.