Harvard University economist and former Council of Economic Advisers chairman Greg Mankiw credits Rosen as one of four mentors who taught him how to practice economics, along with Alan Blinder, Larry Summers, and Stanley Fischer.

[2] Rosen attended the University of Michigan, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa society and received a bachelor's degree in economics in 1970.

From 1989-1991 he worked at the United States Department of Treasury as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis.

[6] Rosen is currently the John L. Weinberg Professor of Economics and Business Policy at Princeton University, where he has previously served as Chairman of the Department from 1993 to 1996, and was a Co-Director at the Princeton University Center for Economic Policy Studies from 1993 to 2011.

[8] In 2013, Rosen was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case.