Elizabeth (Betsy) Brainerd is the Susan and Barton Winokur Professor of Economics and Women's and Gender Studies at the Department of Economics, Brandeis University. She was previously a Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Development, Harvard University and an Assistant Professor of Economics at Williams College. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1996 and her BA from Bowdoin College in Economics and Russian in 1985. Her recent work has focused on labor markets and distributional outcomes in transition economies, including studies of the wage structure in Russia and of the gender wage gap in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. She is currently studying the mortality crisis in the former Soviet Union and its possible links with the economic reforms in the region. Other research projects include an analysis of the impact of privatization on workers in Russia, and a study of the recent decline in fertility in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Professor Brainerd served as an economic advisor to the Russian Government in Moscow from 1992 - 93, as a member of a team of advisors headed by Jeffrey Sachs.

She joined IZA as a Research Fellow in May 2000.