CEAR Director Glenn Harrison Appointed Distinguished University Professor

ATLANTA–Glenn W. Harrison, C.V. Starr Chair of Risk Management & Insurance at Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business, has been appointed a Distinguished University Professor in recognition of his sustained and outstanding record in scholarship and instruction. No more than five percent of Georgia State tenured faculty members are Distinguished University Professors at any time.

A world-renowned researcher of risk perception and management, behavioral and experimental economics, and development economics, Harrison is among the domain’s most cited scholars, according to an analysis conducted by Stanford University’s Meta-Research Innovation Center and published in PLOS Biology in Oct. 2020. He has more than 25,000 citations to his research, according to Google Scholar.

Harrison joined Georgia State in 2009 to establish the Center for the Economic Analysis of Risk (CEAR) and, as its inaugural director, develop the topic of risk into a well-defined, interdisciplinary area of study, research and policy. Risk is widely studied in many academic disciplines, including economics, finance, accounting, risk management and insurance, engineering, operations research, psychology, and public health. However, the tools and methods to study risk vary by domain, and research questions and applications often differ markedly. As CEAR director, Harrison is fostering dialogue between risk researchers and policy makers to arbitrage differences in knowledge across these areas.

“Dr. Harrison is an exceptional scholar who throughout his career has had significant impact on the field of experimental economics. In particular, it is hard to overstate the importance of Glenn’s work as applied to understanding decision-making under uncertainty and the interaction of risk and time preferences,” said Robinson College of Business Dean, Richard Phillips. “His work has influenced a generation of scholars worldwide.”

In addition to his academic work, Harrison has consulted for government agencies and private bodies including the World Bank (evaluating trade policy reforms for developing countries), the Swedish government and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (evaluating carbon tax proposals), the Danish government (evaluating tax and deregulation policies), and counsel representing parties seeking damages from tobacco companies and drug companies.

Prior to joining Georgia State, Harrison was a professor of economics at the University of Central Florida, the University of South Carolina, and the University of Western Ontario. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.