Orley Ashenfelter’s areas of specialization include labor economics, econometrics, and law and economics. His current research includes the cross-country measurement of wage rates, and many other issues related to the economics of labor markets.

He has been the director of the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University, director of the Office of Evaluation of the U.S. Department of Labor, a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Benjamin Meeker Visiting Professor at the University of Bristol.

He edited the Handbook of Labor Economics, was editor of the American Economic Review, and the co-editor of the American Law and Economics Review. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Population Economics.