Rachel Friedberg

Rachel Friedberg is a Teaching Professor of Economics at Brown University, with affiliations to the Program in Judaic Studies and the Population Studies and Training Center (PSTC). Her research focuses on the economics of immigration, particularly the labor market impacts of immigrants in the United States and Israel, and the intersection of economics with Jewish social science.

• Affiliated Institutions: Brown University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (former faculty), PSTC
• Education: PhD in Economics from MIT (1993), BA from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1986)

Her work employs econometric analysis to study immigrant outcomes, including human capital portability, language proficiency, and policy reform. She has testified before U.S. Congress and participated in Israeli Knesset committee deliberations on immigration. Recent publications examine guest worker programs, economic diversity in migration, and long-term immigrant assimilation.

Scientific awards include the William G. McLoughlin Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2008), NBER/Sloan Foundation grants, and fellowships from U.S. Department of Education and Hebrew University. She teaches Principles of Economics, Brown's most popular undergraduate course.

• Honors:
  • NBER / Sloan Foundation, Undergraduate Women in Economics
  • Jacob Javits Graduate Fellowship
  • Lady Davis Fellow
  • Phi Beta Kappa

Rachel Friedberg has led funded research projects on immigration impacts in Israel (Falk Institute, MIT Program for the Study of the Israeli Economy) and received multiple Brown University grants for curricular development. Her work bridges economic theory with real-world policy analysis, emphasizing migration's role in demography and social science.