Christopher J. Ruhm

Christopher J. Ruhm is the Jefferson-Pilot Excellence Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is also a Research Associate in the Health Economics, Health Care Policy and Children’s Programs of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor IZA). During 1996-97, he served as Senior Economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, where his main responsibilities were in the areas of health policy, aging and labor market issues. Prior to joining the UNCG faculty, he taught at Boston University and held a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Brandeis University. Ruhm teaches in the areas of health economics, labor economics, applied microeconomics, and quantitative methods. He has conducted extensive research on the determinants of health and risky behaviors, effects of job displacements and mandated employment benefits, transition into retirement, and the causes and the economic consequences of alcohol and illegal drug policies. He is currently an associate editor of the European Economic Review, International Journal of Information Security and Privacy, and the Southern Economic Journal, a steering committee member of the Southeastern Health Economics Study Group and on the Board of Trustees of the Southern Economic Association. He earned his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 1984.