Bruno Frey

In a recent publication from Miha Dominko and Miroslav Verbič titled "The Economics of Subjective Well-Being: A Bibliometric Analysis" and published in the Journal of Happiness Studies in 2019, the authors examined the development of subjective well-being research. Their result from Table 3. "50 most cited articles in the economics of subjective well-being research" B. S. Frey and A. Stutzer's article "What can economists learn from happiness research?" was placed on the very first place.

According to "Economists’ Impact Ranking" (Ökonomen-Einfluss-Ranking) in NZZ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) of September 21, 2019, Bruno S. Frey achieved Rank 4 in Switzerland (in terms of research output: Rank 2) and according to "Germany's most influential Economists" in F.A.Z (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) of September 21, 2019: Rank 5 in Germany. In Handelsblatt’s “Economics Ranking 2019", September 16, 2019, he was placed in terms of "lifetime achievement" on the 1st Rank.

According to the RePEc-Ranking from October 2015, he is listed as the 14th most cited European economist. Additionally, the Swiss newspaper, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, publishes regularly a rating measuring the academic success and the public perception in the media and politics of economists. In this rating, he was appointed as the 3rd most influential economist in Switzerland in 2014 and 2015.

In 2012, the government of Bhutan appointed Frey to an international group of experts to investigate "a new development paradigm designed to nurture human happiness and the wellbeing of all life on earth."

In July 2011, the University of Zurich established a commission to investigate allegations of publication misconduct (self-plagiarism) by Frey and his co-authors. In October of the same year the commission reported that Frey had committed misconduct, namely self-plagiarism. In July 2012, the Faculty of Business, Economics and Management at the University of Zurich decided to not extend the employment contract Frey had after having become emeritus professor.

During 2010 and 2011 Frey, with co-authors Benno Torgler and David Savage, published four articles concerning the Titanic disaster in four different journals. Concerning these articles, in 2011 Frey and his co-authors were accused of self-plagiarism. On 3 May 2011 David Autor, editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, wrote a public letter to Frey claiming "very substantial overlap between these articles and your JEP publication. Indeed, to my eye, they are substantively identical." Pointing out that the other articles were not cited, Autor further wrote that "your conduct in this matter [is] ethically dubious and disrespectful to the American Economic Association, the Journal of Economic Perspectives and the JEP's readers." In a public response Frey accepted theses accusations and offered his apologies, writing, "[i]t was a grave mistake on our part for which we deeply apologize. It should never have happened. This is deplorable."

Frey was appointed to the Copenhagen Consensus expert commission in 2004, alongside four Nobel Prize winners. The main goal of this commission was to assess priorities for addressing the main challenges facing humanity including hunger, AIDS, water access, trade barriers, corruption, and global warming.

Frey studied economics at the University of Basel and at the University of Cambridge, obtaining a doctorate in economics in 1965. From 1969 to 2010 Frey was an associate professor of economics at the University of Basel, from 1977 to 2012 a professor of economics at the University of Zurich, and since 1969 has held editor positions at Kyklos, a Swiss journal on political economy. Since 2004 Frey has been a director of research for the Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA). Starting from 2010 until 2013, Frey was appointed to the Warwick Business School in the role of a Dinstinguished Professor of Behavioural Science.

Bruno S. Frey (born 4 May 1941 in Basel, Switzerland) is a Swiss economist and visiting professor for Political Economy at the University of Basel. Frey's research topics include Political economy and Happiness economics, with his published work including concepts derived from Psychology, Sociology, Jurisprudence, History, Arts, and Theology.