Microeconomics and Behavior

About the Author

Robert Frank

Robert H. Frank is the H. J. Louis Professor of Management and Professor of Economics, emeritus, at Cornell’s Johnson School of Management, where he taught from 1972 to 2020. After receiving his B.S. from Georgia Tech in 1966, he taught math and science for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Nepal. He received his M.A. in statistics in 1971 and his Ph.D. in economics in 1972 from The University of California at Berkeley. He also holds honorary doctorate degrees from the University of St. Gallen and Dalhousie University. During leaves of absence from Cornell, he has served as chief economist for the Civil Aeronautics Board (1978–1980), a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1992–1993), Professor of American Civilization at l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris (2000–2001), and the Peter and Charlotte Schoenfeld Visiting Faculty Fellow at the NYU Stern School of Business in 2008–2009. His papers have appeared in the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Journal of Polit-ical Economy, and other leading professional journals, and for more than two decades, his economics columns appeared regu-larly in The New York Times.

His research has focused on rivalry and cooperation in economic and social behavior. His books on these themes include Choosing the Right Pond (Oxford, 1985), Passions Within Reason (W. W. Norton, 1988), What Price the Moral High Ground? (Princeton, 2004), Falling Behind (University of California Press, 2007), The Economic Naturalist (Basic Books, 2007), The Economic Naturalist’s Field Guide (Basic Books, 2009), The Darwin Economy (Princeton, 2011), Success and Luck (Princeton, 2016), and Under the Influence (Princeton, 2020), which have been translated into 24 languages. The Winner-Take-All Society (The Free Press, 1995), co-authored with Philip Cook, received a Critic’s Choice Award, was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times, and was included in BusinessWeek’s list of the 10 best books of 1995. Luxury Fever (The Free Press, 1999) was named to the Knight-Ridder Best Books list for 1999. Professor Frank is a co-recipient of the 2004 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. He was awarded the Johnson School’s Stephen Russell Distinguished Teaching Award in 2004, 2010, 2012, and 2018, and the School’s Apple Distinguished Teaching Award in 2005. His introductory microeconomics course has graduated more than 7,000 enthusiastic economic naturalists over the years.