Robert E. Wright is affiliated to the Adam Smith Business School of the University of Glasgow.

From 2005 to 2018 Robert was a Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics in the Strathclyde Business School. From 1995 to 2005, he was Professor and University Chair in Economics in the Department of Economics at the University Stirling and Vice-Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Management. He is the Research Co-ordinator of the Demography and Social Justice Programme at the Scottish Economic Policy Network (SCOTECON) and the Director of the Scottish Graduate Programme in Economics (SGPE). A Canadian (born 1958), he studied at the University of Western Ontario, the University of Michigan, the University of Stockholm and at the National Institute of Demographic Research (INED) in Paris. He has been a Visiting Professor at DELTA in Paris and at the Universities of Amsterdam and Stockholm. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; a Founding Fellow of the Institute of Contemporary Scotland; a Member of the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education; and an Academician and Editorial Board Member of Academy of the Learned Societies for the Social Sciences. He is Past President of the European Society for Population Economics and President-elect of the Scottish Economics Society.

He joined IZA as a Research Fellow in October 1999.