Daniel S. Hamermesh


Daniel Selim Hamermesh is a U.S. economist, and a Professor of Economics at Royal Holloway, University of London, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and Research Associate at the Institute for the Future of Labor. Previously he was a Sue Killam Professor in the Foundations of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin.

Education and background

Hamermesh received his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago, and in 1969 he received his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University. He has taught at Michigan State University and Princeton University. He has held visiting professorships at University of Michigan and Harvard University, as well as in Europe, Asia and Australia. He has lectured at over 230 universities in 48 states and 30 foreign countries.
Hamermesh is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and the Society of Labor Economists, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and the
Institute for the Study of Labor, and Past President of the Society of Labor Economists and of the Midwest Economics Association. In 2013 he received the biennial Mincer Award of the Society of Labor Economists for lifetime contributions to labor economics, the annual IZA Prize in Labor from the Institute for the Study of Labor, and the biennial John R. Commons Award of the international economics honor society ΟΔΕ. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of IZA World of Labor.
Hamermesh has received numerous grants from the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies and has served on many panels of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He was head of the Scientific Advisory Board of the German Institute for Economic Research from 2003 to 2008 and was Director of Research in the United States Department of Labor in 1974–75.

Research and publications

Hamermesh has published nearly 100 refereed articles in the major journals of economics. His work Labor Demand was published in 1993 by Princeton University Press, the same press that published his Beauty Pays in 2011. His work discusses time use, labor demand, discrimination, social programs, academic labor markets, and unusual applications of labor economics. A number of his papers have offered advice to younger and other scholars on etiquette in the economics profession. In 2012 Worth published the fourth edition of his Economics Is Everywhere, a series of 400 vignettes designed to illustrate the ubiquity of economics in everyday life and how the simple tools in a microeconomics principles class can be used.

Resignation over gun safety concerns

After the University of Texas allowed concealed firearms in classrooms, Hamermesh resigned due to safety concerns, saying that he believed the law has increased the chance of injury or death to him or others in the classroom from the impulsive action of a disgruntled student.