John Friedman

Not to be confused with John Friedmann.

John N. Friedman
Spouse	Hilary Friedman
Academic background
Alma mater	Harvard University (AB, AM, PhD)
Academic advisors	Andrei Shleifer, Edward Glaeser, David Laibson, Alberto Alesina, David Cutler
Academic work
Discipline	Economics
Institutions	Brown University

John N. Friedman is an economist 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. Since July 1, 2025, Friedman has been the inaugural dean of the Thomas J. Watson Jr. School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

Early life and education

Friedman was born to Barbara and Benjamin Friedman; his father is also an economist, on the faculty of Harvard University. John Friedman attended Harvard, graduating summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in economics in 2002. He received his master's in statistics the same year. In 2007, Friedman received his PhD in economics from Harvard. At Harvard, Friedman overlapped with his future collaborator Raj Chetty.

Career

His research interests include public economics and political economy. Friedman was previously an assistant professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University and served as a Special Assistant to President Obama for Economic Policy on the White House's National Economic Council in 2013–2014. He became editor-in-chief of the Journal of Public Economics in 2019. In 2018, Friedman co-founded Opportunity Insights, an economics-focused think tank, with Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Friedman co-led a group that developed an economic tracker, the Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker. This presented private-sector data on economic trends more frequently and more rapidly than officially published economic statistics.

Personal life

Friedman is married to Hilary Levey 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 and married in 2010. They have two sons.