Robert Z. Lawrence is the Albert L. Williams Professor of Trade and Investment at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was appointed by President Clinton to serve as a member of his Council of Economic Advisers in 1999. He held the New Century Chair as a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and founded and edited the Brookings Trade Forum.
Lawrence has been a Senior Fellow in the Economic Studies Program at Brookings (1983–91), a Professorial Lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (1978–81), and an Instructor at Yale University (1975). He has served as a Consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the World Bank, the OECD, and UNCTAD.
He is the author of more than 100 papers and articles on topics in the field of international economics, particularly on global integration, trade in the Middle East, and the impact of trade on the labour market. He is also the author or coauthor of several books, including Blue-Collar Blues: Is Trade to Blame for Rising US Income Inequality? (2008), Case Studies in US Trade Negotiation (2006), Anchoring Reform with a US-Egypt Free Trade Agreement (2005), Has Globalization Gone Far Enough? The Costs of Fragmented Markets (2004), Crimes and Punishment? Retaliation under the WTO (2003), and Globaphobia: Confronting Fears about Open Trade (Brookings Institution Press; 1998).
