Professor Pedro Gomes

Biography

Pedro Gomes is a Professor of Economics at Birkbeck, University of London. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor at Carlos III University of Madrid for seven years and a Visiting Professor at the University of Essex. He obtained his PhD from the London School of Economics in 2010. A researcher in the macroeconomics of labour markets, he has published extensively in academic journals and contributed chapters to books. In 2021, he published Friday is the New Saturday in the UK, presenting his vision of the four-day week as a more efficient and sustainable way to organize the economy in the 21st century. The book received critical acclaim, was named a Financial Times Book of the Month, and has been translated into Portuguese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish. In 2022, he was invited by the Portuguese government to coordinate the country’s first four-day week trial in the private sector. The trial, conducted in 2023 with 41 participating companies, resulted in 90% of firms maintaining reduced working hours beyond the pilot phase.

How does it feel to be shortlisted for the Panmure House Prize?

It’s an honour to be shortlisted for the Panmure House Prize. This recognition affirms both the quality of my research and the courage to focus on a topic long overlooked by mainstream economics.

Shortening the working week is a once-in-a-century shift—comparable in scale to the move from six to five days a century ago. Yet most economists have treated it as a luxury, rather than a subject worthy of rigorous, multidimensional analysis. Being shortlisted signals that there is space in economics for bold, forward-looking questions and interdisciplinary thinking.

On a personal level, it’s deeply rewarding. This is a project I’ve driven with passion for years—through writing a book, engaging with the public, leading a national four-day week trial with private-sector companies, and developing a deeper academic framework. To see this research acknowledged by such a prestigious prize—and connected to Adam Smith’s legacy of engaged, applied economics—is a real milestone in my career.

How did you find out about the Panmure House Prize and what was it that attracted you to apply?

I found out about the Panmure House Prize through academic networks. I admired its focus—not just on economic research, but on economic research that reflects the long-term thinking and imagination of Adam Smith.

What attracted me to apply was how well the Prize aligns with the kind of work I have been conducting. My research asks deeper questions about the four-day week, its multiple effects on the economy, and how they have been amplified by recent structural changes in technology and society. These are not questions that can be answered by marginal adjustments to existing models—they require a wider interdisciplinary approach and a long-term view.

The Panmure House Prize rewards that kind of thinking. It encourages economists to engage with real-world challenges and to explore the structural and societal shifts shaping our future. That encouragement is rare, and it matters.

Could you give us a brief introduction to your research for people who might not be from an academic background, could you explain what is the problem you are trying to solve?

My research focuses on a simple but powerful question: What would happen to the economy if we worked less?

The five-day working week has been the norm for over a century—but it wasn’t always this way. Before the 20th century, most people worked six days a week. The shift to five days marked a major social and economic transformation, driven by new technologies, visionary entrepreneurs, labour movements, and political decisions.

Today, the idea of a four-day week is gaining momentum, but it remains marginal in academic economics. Most economists are sceptical, arguing that fewer hours must lead to lower output. But that’s just one part of the puzzle. A shift this big will reshape how we work, the well-being of workers and the productivity of firms. It will have wider impacts in the economy because leisure time is also time to consume, innovate and learn. It also touches broader societal challenges—like fertility, gender inequality, environment, global health, and even political polarisation. These are not marginal concerns; they are at the heart of today’s economic and social challenges.

Meanwhile, the world has changed dramatically in the past 30 years. The speed of communication, the nature of jobs, our education levels, life expectancy, family structures, and the role of women in society have all transformed. Many of these structural shifts have amplified the effects of reduced working time.

Economists often rely on models to isolate cause and effect, but these tools struggle with complex changes involving multiple interacting factors. My research explores the full web of effects—how they interact, how they can be measured, and what they mean in today’s economy. Ultimately, I want to quantify these effects and help society answer the question: Is the four-day week desirable, feasible, and economically sound?

How do you conduct your research?

In the spirit of Adam Smith, I first developed a comprehensive economic narrative on the four-day week in the form of a book, Friday is the New Saturday, while maintaining the analytical rigor of a mainstream academic economist—one capable of both producing and critically evaluating technical research. In the book, I laid out the theoretical foundation for a coordinated transition to a shorter working week, offering an economic framework to help governments and businesses navigate this shift—ensuring that reduced hours lead to a more dynamic and sustainable economy, not lower output.

Following its publication, I was invited by the Portuguese Government to coordinate a national Four-Day Week Pilot with private-sector companies. Running this pilot gave me first-hand experience of how firms can shorter the working week while remaining competitive, as well as insight into the transformative effects on workers’ lives. It also enabled me to gather valuable real-world data on how work-time reduction affects businesses and employees in practice.

My research is interdisciplinary. I collaborate with psychologists, sociologists, and management scholars to better understand the organisational and social dimensions of this shift. By combining robust data, qualitative insights, and policy engagement, I aim to build a research base that is both academically rigorous and practically useful for decision-makers.

How do you envision your work will advance long-term thinking and innovation in your field and beyond?

My research encourages economists to think more broadly and more long-term about the organisation of work. Most of our models still assume that longer hours equal more output, and that leisure merely brings psychological well-being and no further effects in the economy. But that perspective overlooks how work is actually experienced—and how much the structure of time affects health, productivity, learning, and innovation. I hope my research can push economics toward working more on these questions.

Beyond economics, my work has already begun to influence public debate, business practice, and labour policy. Through public engagement and practical trials, I’ve seen companies change how they think about productivity and I’ve seen governments reconsider how they look at working time reduction.

Long-term thinking requires not just insight, but also courage and experimentation. That’s what I’m trying to bring to this field.

What are you working on next?

The next phase of my research will focus on keep testing the four-day week through real-world experimentation. A change of this magnitude naturally raises questions: can the benefits truly outweigh the costs? As economists, our role is to encourage careful, evidence-based trials that help quantify the effects and reduce uncertainty around such a shift.

Later this year, we will launch a new four-day week pilot in the public sector, in partnership with the Regional Government of the Azores. I’m also eager to explore the feasibility of a trial in the healthcare sector. Public services—especially healthcare—face chronic issues like staff shortages, burnout, low morale, and recruitment challenges. These are, at their core, human resource problems that a four-day week could help alleviate. If the model can work in such a demanding environment, it would represent a major step forward in demonstrating its broader applicability.