René Fahr is currently full professor of management and director of the BaER-Lab at the University of Paderborn. After an apprenticeship at the Deutsche Bank AG René Fahr studied Economics, Philosophy, and German Literature at the University of Bonn. He received his degree as a "Diplom-Volkswirt" in 1998. He enrolled in the European Doctoral Program (EDP) at the Bonn Graduate School of Economics and spent his second EDP year at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he worked at the Centre for Economic Performance.

René Fahr received his Ph.D. in 2003 for his doctoral thesis on "Occupational Mobility and Occupational Matching: Some Implications for Career Choice and Labor Market Policy" under the supervision of Klaus F. Zimmermann. From December 1999 until October 2003 he worked at IZA first as a Resident Research Affiliate, then as a Research Associate. From November 2003 till April 2008 he was assistant professor at the University of Cologne. Since November 2003 he continues to maintain close ties to IZA as a Research Fellow.

His research interests include personnel economics, health economics, education, search and matching, migration, time allocation, public economics, business ethics, behavioral ethics and experimental economics.

He has published his work in several journals such as Applied Economics, Economics Letters, European Economic Review, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Labour Economics, Oxford Economic Papers, Regional Science and Urban Economics.