Professor, Economics, Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs
Faculty Affiliate, Aging Studies Institute
Biography:
John Cawley is the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Chair in Public Policy and professor of economics and public administration and international affairs. He also serves as senior research associate in the Maxwell-based Center for Policy Research and as a research affiliate in the Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health. His research focuses on the economics of risky health behaviors; in particular, those that relate to obesity.
In addition to his affiliation with Syracuse University, he serves as an honorary professor of economics at the J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics at the University of Galway in Ireland. In 2016 he was named a Fulbright Specialist in Economics to Ireland through the Fulbright Scholar Program.
He is the recipient of the State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship, the Kappa Omicron Nu/Human Ecology Alumni Association Award for Excellence in Advising, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Investigator Award in Health Policy Research.
Cawley is the president-elect of the American Society of Health Economists and will serve as president from 2026-27. Since 2022 he has served on the board of directors of the International Health Economics Association. He is a former editor of the Journal of Health Economics and served on an Institute of Medicine panel on obesity in youth.
Prior to arriving at the Maxwell School, Cawley was a professor in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University and directed the Cornell in Washington program. His other roles at Cornell included serving as co-director of the Institute on Health Economics, Health Behaviors and Disparities from 2011-22 and professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management and Department of Economics.
Cawley received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree in economics from Harvard University.
