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Economic Rockstar


Mar 26, 2015

Dan Hamermesh is Professor in Economics at the Royal Holloway University of London and at the University of Texas at Austin. Dan researches the economics of beauty. He received his Ph.D. from Yale and has since taught at Princeton, at Michigan State, and at Texas. He has held visiting professorships at universities in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia, and lectured at almost 250 universities in 48 states and 33 foreign countries. His research, published in nearly 100 refereed papers in scholarly journals, has concentrated on time use, labor demand, discrimination, academic labor markets and unusual applications of labor economics (to beauty, sleep and suicide).

Professor Hamermesh has received many notable and distinguished honors and awards in recognition for his contribution to the field of economics. These include the Mincer Award and the IZA Prize in Labor Economics, the John R. Commons Award, as well as many teaching of excellence awards.

Daniel’s teaching include Microeconomics; Macroeconomics; Econometrics; Economics of Labor and Economics of Life.

Daniel is the author of many books including Demand for Labor: The Neglected Side of the MarketBeauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More SuccessfulThe Economics of Time Use and Economics Is Everywhere. He is also a regular contributor to the Freakonomics blog and podcast.

In this interview, Dan mentions and discusses:

Speculation, inter-temporal maximisation, labor economics, incentives, wages, welfare payments, comparative advantage and externalities.

Find out:

  • how students of economics can inspire their professors in a two-way mutual learning process.
  • why we should think about economics in things we see or do in the real world.
  • how economics can be used beyond the theoretical framework we see in textbooks.
  • how economics is everywhere - we just need to think, see and interpret.
  • how economics is enjoying a revival in reaching to mass audiences.
  • why we should read interesting books on economics.
  • if happiness is related to how beautiful or attractive you are.why better-looking men are happier.
  • how to recognise if you are beautiful.
  • what good-looking attorneys, prostitutes, politicians and NFL quarter-backs have in common. 
  • and much, much more.