Zvi Lerman is the Sir Henry d'Avigdor Goldsmid Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics in the Department of Environmental Economics and Management, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, where he served as Department Head (2005-2009) and Chairman of Departmental Curriculum Programs (1996-1998). Retired in 2011 with the rank of Full Professor. Teaching experience includes financial management, accounting, and the economics of cooperatives.

Since 1991 his research has focused on land reform and farm restructuring in transition economies. He has conducted farm-level surveys in various countries of the former Soviet Union and Central Eastern Europe, covering large farm enterprises, family farms, and rural households. The field work has been financed by the World Bank, FAO, and USAID, and the research findings have been extensively presented at international conferences and reported in numerous journal articles, books, and monographs. Many of these publications have been translated into Russian and other languages.

Zvi Lerman earned his PhD degree in Finance in 1984 from the School of Business Administration, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and became Full Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2000. He was a Visiting Research Fellow at the World Bank's Agriculture and Natural Resources Department in Washington in 1993-1994, a Visiting Researcher in the World Bank's Development Economics Research Group in 1998-1999, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington in 1999-2000, a resident scholar at the Rockefeller Foundations' Bellagio Center in Italy in 2004, and a Visiting Researcher at the FAO’s Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia in 2006 (Rome) and 2009-2010 (Budapest). Regularly cooperates with researchers in the former Soviet Union, especially at the Gaidar Institute of Economies in Transition and the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in Moscow.