Robert Thornton is the MacFarlane Professor Emeritus of Economics at Lehigh University and an Associate Director of the Martindale Center for the Study of Private Enterprise. He has also served as chairman of Lehigh’s Department of Economics. His research interests lie in the areas of labor economics (particularly unionism in the public sector, occupational licensing, and labor market discrimination) and forensic economics. He has taught courses in labor economics and statistics. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Illinois after having served as a research assistant at the Brookings Institution. He began his academic career at Lehigh in 1970 and has been a visiting research professor at the University of Sussex (UK) and University College Dublin (Ireland). He also serves as a private consultant in litigation involving personal injury, wrongful death, and discrimination.
