John T. Addison is a labour economist who was educated at the London School of Economics (BSc, MSc, and PhD). After completing his studies at LSE, he was an economic adviser at the Office of Manpower Economics in London for a year before leaving to take up a lectureship in political economy at the University of Aberdeen, followed some years later by a professorship at the University of South Carolina where he became Hugh C. Lane Professor of Economic Theory.