Gary S. Fielda

Gary S. Fields is a distinguished economist who has shaped the field of labor economics and development studies for over five decades at Cornell University, where he serves as the John P. Windmuller Professor of International and Comparative Labor and Professor of Economics. After earning his PhD from the University of Michigan, he began his remarkable academic career as an assistant professor at Yale University at age 25, before joining Cornell University where he has demonstrated exceptional teaching excellence, receiving perfect ratings in several courses and winning the General Mills Foundation Award for Exemplary Graduate Teaching three times. His research contributions include nearly 200 publications spanning labor mobility, economic development, and poverty reduction, with his works appearing in prestigious journals and published by leading academic presses. His scholarly impact earned him the 2014 IZA Prize in Labor Economics, and his statistical innovations have been incorporated into standard economic software as "gfields." Beyond academia, he has influenced policy through extensive consulting work with international organizations including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and United Nations, while his research on unemployment in developing countries and income mobility has fundamentally shaped our understanding of labor markets and economic development.