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Schar School of Policy and Government professor John S. Earle has been named a George Mason University Professor in recognition of his national and international accomplishments in public policy research. His status as University Professor was approved by a resolution of the Mason Board of Visitors in late July.
Earle, who joined Mason in 2010, is the director of the Center for Micro-Economic Policy Research, which hosts weekly Micro-Economic Policy Seminars that bring prestigious speakers in the field to deliver policy-relevant research to students and faculty, not only from the Schar School, but also from several other universities and Mason departments. He also serves as the director of the Schar School’s PhD in Public Policy program.
Earle earned his PhD in economics from Stanford University and undergraduate degrees from Oberlin College and Conservatory. His main research interests include labor, development, and institutions, including topics such as employment policies, financial constraints, political economy, firm dynamics, productivity, post-communist transition, inequality, and entrepreneurship. Much of his research uses large, firm-level databases from the U.S. and other countries, and he has pioneered cross-country comparative studies of such data.
Earle’s accolades include election as president of the Association for Comparative Economic Studies, a Fulbright scholarship, and a National Science Graduate Fellowship. His research won the 2011 Abram Bergson Prize for “Best Paper in Comparative Economic Studies” for his paper “Did Post-Communist Privatization Increase Mortality?” In 2018, he received the Outstanding Scholar Award from the Schar School.
Earle, who came to Mason after two decades of teaching at Stanford University, the Stockholm School of Economics, and the Central European University in Budapest, is frequently published in leading journals around the world, not only in economics, but also political science, management, finance, and labor studies.
Among the numerous journals in which he has published are the Journal of Political Economy, Economic Journal, Journal of Finance, Review of Economics and Statistics, American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Academy of Management Journal, and Journal of Labor Economics.
Earle’s research has been supported by multiple grants from the National Science Foundation and the European Union as well as by private foundations, including the MacArthur Foundation and Russell Sage Foundation, among others. Working with several Schar School students and alumni, he completed a large research project on African American entrepreneurs for the U.S. Small Business Administration during 2019-20.
“Importantly,” added Schar School dean Mark J. Rozell, “these grants have funded multiple graduate students with whom he has co-written many publications, and their career successes owe much to his support and mentorship. We are very proud of John’s accomplishments and congratulate him on his achievement as University Professor.”
In his off hours, Earle can be found at a different sort of keyboard—grand piano—performing in classical recitals throughout the region. In the last year, he joined the piano studio of Linda Monson, director of Mason’s School of Music and director of keyboard studies, and recorded several recitals, duo and solo, at Alexandria’s History Museum: The Lyceum. On September 12, he returns to the Lyceum to perform a program of Piano and Friends, with wind and string instruments and voice joining him at the piano.
Earle joins other Schar School faculty members as University Professors, including Zoltan Acs, Louise I. Shelley, Faye S. Taxman, Kenneth J. Button, James Olds, and Janine R. Wedel. Previous University Professors include Kingsley Haynes, Tim Conlan, Stephen Fuller, and the late Andrew Hughes Hallett.