Frederic Michael Scherer (born 1932 in Ottawa, Illinois) is an American economist and expert on industrial organization. Since 2006, he continues as a professor of economics at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University.
Scherer received his A.B. degree with honors and distinction from the University of Michigan and his M.B.A. with high distinction from Harvard University in 1958 and his PhD in economics from Harvard in 1963.[1]
He is married to Barbara Silbermann Scherer, and the couple have three children and eight grandchildren.[2]
Scherer served as the chief economist for the Federal Trade Commission in 1974-76.[3] He has taught at Princeton University, Northwestern University, Swarthmore College, Haverford College, the University of Bayreuth and the Central European University. Since 2006 Scherer has been Emeritus Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Management in the Aetna Chair, in the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
His research specialties include industrial economics and the economics of technological change, on which he has many much-cited publications, including the books listed below, and the articles in [4][5] His 1971 textbook on Industrial Organization has gone through many editions, and Scherer still participates on the advisory board for the scholarly magazine of the same name. Scherer has also published recently concerning patent policy reform.[6] Upon the death of Thomas McCraw, Scherer may be the scholar with the most expertise concerning the theories of former Harvard professor Joseph Schumpeter, about whom he has made a series of YouTube videos.[7]
Scherer received the first "Distinguished Fellow Award" from the Industrial Organization Society in 1999;[8] the second was Jean Tirole,[9] who later received the Nobel Prize in 2014 for his work in industrial organization.[10] Scherer also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Hohenheim, Germany. He served as the 3rd [11] president of the Industrial Organization Society, as well as of the International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society, and vice president of the American Economic Association and of the Southern Economic Association. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Antitrust Institute in 2002.[12]