Paul Frijters completed his Masters in Econometrics at the University of Groningen, including a seven-month stay in Durban, South Africa before completing a PhD through the University of Amsterdam. He has also engaged in teaching and research at the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University and QUT.

Professor Fritjers specializes in applied micro-econometrics, including labor, happiness, and health economics, though he has also worked on pure theoretical topics in macro and micro fields. His main area of interest is in analyzing how socio-economic variables affect the human life experience and the "unanswerable" economic mysteries in life.

Professor Frijters is a prominent research economist and has published over 50 papers in fields including unemployment policy, discrimination and economic development.

He is the Research Director of the Rumici Project, a project sponsored by the Australian Ministry of Foreign Aid (AusAid), and is also a co-editor of the journal, Economic Record. In 2009 he was voted Australia's best young economist under 40 by the Australian Economic Society.

He joined IZA as a Research Fellow in April 2010.