John S. Earle is an internationally recognized expert in labor markets, firm behavior, and entrepreneurship. Currently University Professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, he is one of the most prominent scholars on both the transition from communism (in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union) and on employment dynamics and financial constraints (in multiple countries, including the US). His main research interests are in labor, development, and institutions, including topics such as employment policies, financial access, reallocation, productivity, and entrepreneurship. Much of the research uses large firm-level databases from the US and other countries, and he has pioneered cross-country comparative studies of such data.

Earle has published more than 60 articles in referred scholarly journals ranging across a diverse set of fields: economics, political science, finance, management and labor studies. The journals include Journal of Political Economy, Economic Journal, Journal of Finance, Academy of Management Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics, American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Comparative Economics, Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Labor Economics, Labour Economics, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, and Economics and Politics. The research has been supported by several grants from the National Science Foundation and the European Union as well as by private foundations such as the MacArthur and Russell Sage Foundations, among others.

At the Schar School, Earle teaches courses in microeconomics, labor economics, and research methods for PhD students. He directs the Center for Micro-Economic Policy Research, which operates a weekly series of Micro-Economic Policy Seminars (MEPS) drawing participants from several units of Mason. He is particularly active in mentoring PhD students.

His work has been recognized not only through prestigious grants but also through a number of awards. He was elected President of the Association for Comparative Economic Studies and a paper won the best paper award in Comparative Economic Studies. In 2018, he received the Outstanding Scholar Award from the Schar School, and in 2021 he was one of only two members of the entire university faculty to be awarded the highest academic title of University Professor.

Earle received his undergraduate degrees from Oberlin College and Conservatory and his PhD from Stanford University. Before coming to Mason he taught at Stanford University, Stockholm School of Economics, University of Vienna, and Central European University, and held research positions at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics. He is a long-standing Research Fellow of IZA, the Institute for Labor Economics, and also has had affiliations with the Institute of Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Center for Advanced Studies in Vienna, and the Brookings Institution. Policy experience includes stints at the Council of Economic Advisers, the Congressional Budget Office, and the US Geological Survey, and policy advising and consulting with the World Bank, OECD, USAID, the Small Business Administration, among others.