Jeff Waddoups received a B.A. degree in 1984 and a Ph.D. degree in 1989 in Economics from the University of Utah, with specializations in labor economics and industrial relations. In 1989 he joined the Department of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he is currently a professor. He has developed and taught courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels in labor economics, research methods, labor law, statistics, health economics, the economics of discrimination, and macroeconomics. He has also held adjunct faculty positions at Penn State’s Human Resource and Employment Relations masters’ program, at Griffith University’s Department of Management, and at the Helsinki School of Economics Bachelor of Business Administration Program. He is the author or co-author of 49 academic articles, and is an internationally and nationally recognized scholar with publications in some of the top journals in labor economics and industrial relations including Industrial & Labor Relations Review, Industrial Relations, and the British Journal of Industrial Relations.
Waddoups has developed a number of areas of research expertise over his career. His most recent research focuses on union wage effects in the hospitality industry, the incidence and nature of employer-sponsored training in the U.S and Australia, and on the performance of apprenticeship training programs in the construction industry. He has also conducted research on the impact of responsible contracting policies on construction costs and examined the extent to which low-wage employers are subsidized through uncompensated health care at public hospitals. His earlier research also focused on labor markets in the hospitality sector, documenting the impact of collective bargaining on wages and other outcomes.