John Cawley is a Professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management, and the Department of Economics, at Cornell University. John Co-directs Cornell’s Institute on Health Economics, Health Behaviors and Disparities, and is a Co-editor of the journal Economics & Human Biology. In addition to his affiliation with Cornell, John is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a Research Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
John’s primary field of research is health economics, with a focus on the economics of obesity. He studies the economic causes of obesity, the economic consequences of obesity, and economic approaches to obesity treatment and prevention. Examples of research projects include: the effects of food advertising on diet and of income on weight; the impact of obesity on labour market outcomes such as wages; the effect of physical education on youths; and the effectiveness of financial rewards for weight loss. His research has been published in the American Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Health Economics, Health Economics, and many other peer-reviewed journals. He is also the editor of the recently-published Oxford Handbook of the Social Science of Obesity. His research has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other sources.
He has served on expert panels and advisory committees for the Institute of Medicine, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other government agencies. John’s research has been featured in stories in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Business Week, Forbes, Scientific American, Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as on television and radio. John was awarded the John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators by the Association of University Programs in Health Administration in 2005 and is a coauthor of the paper that won the Center for Disease Control’s Charles C. Shepard Science Award in Prevention and Control in 2009. In 2006, John was awarded the Kappa Omicron Nu / Human Ecology Alumni Association Award for Excellence in Advising of students at Cornell.
John received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree in economics from Harvard University. John serves on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Health Economists (ASHEcon), the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit of Cambridge University, and the selection committees for the Kenneth J. Arrow Award of the International Health Economics Association (IHEA) and the John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators of the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA).
