Research
Current Working Papers
“Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges” (with Raj Chetty and John Friedman), Quarterly Journal of Economics, revise and resubmit.
Paper website; Short non-technical summary; Data and replication code
Press Coverage: New York Times; NPR; The Atlantic; Washington Post; Wall Street Journal; New York Times (x2); The Economist; Marginal Revolution; New York Times (x3)
Interview with the Harvard Gazette; Wiener conference call about the paper; Brookings public event
W.J. Usery Distinguished Lecture about Higher Education and Economic Inequality
Podcasts - Plain English; The Daily; Matter of Opinion
“Economic Decision-Making Skill Predicts Income in Two Countries” (with Andrew Caplin, Soren-Leth Petersen, and Ben Weidmann)
Appendix; Non-technical writeup
“A Young Person’s Guide to Lawrence F. Katz” (with David Autor), in preparation for the Palgrave Companion to Harvard Economics.
“Why Do Wages Grow Faster for Educated Workers?”
Press Coverage: Marginal Revolution; New York Times
“Multidimensional Human Capital and the Wage Structure”, in preparation for the Handbook of the Economics of Education.
“The Growing Importance of Decision-Making on the Job”
Summary in the NBER Digest
Press Coverage: World Economic Forum, Marginal Revolution, Axios, The Bulwark
“The School to Prison Pipeline: Long-Run Impacts of School Suspensions on Adult Crime” (with Andrew Bacher-Hicks and Steve Billings), AEJ: Policy, forthcoming..
“The Impacts of State Budget Cuts on U.S. Postsecondary Attainment” (with Chris Walters), Journal of Human Resources, revise and resubmit.
Press Coverage: 2022 Economic Report of the President, Center for American Progress, Inside Higher Ed, the 74 Million, Education Next
Published Papers by Topic
Skills, Technology and Human Capital
“Four Facts about Human Capital”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 36(3): 75-102.
“Team Players: How Social Skills Improve Team Performance” (with Ben Weidmann), Econometrica, 89(6): 2637-2657.
Harvard Magazine article
“Earnings Dynamics, Changing Job Skills, and STEM Careers” (with Kadeem Noray), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 135(4): 1965-2005.
My NYT column version; Press Coverage from Washington Post, The Atlantic, USA Today, Forbes, American Enterprise Institute
“Structural Increases in Skill Demand after the Great Recession” (with Peter Blair), AEA Papers and Proceedings, 110: 362-365.
“Toward understanding the impact of artificial intelligence on labor” (with Morgan Frank, David Autor, James Bessen, Erik Brynjolfsson, Manuel Cebrian, Maryann Feldman, Matthew Groh, Jose Lobo, Esteban Moro, Dashun Wang, Hyejin Youn, and Iyad Rahwan), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201900949.
“Skill Requirements across Firms and Labor Markets: Evidence from Job Postings for Professionals” (with Lisa Kahn), Journal of Labor Economics, 36.S1: S337-S369.
“The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 132(4): 1593-1640.
Press Coverage: New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN, 538, Harvard Business Review, World Economic Forum, Bloomberg, Equitable Growth, Boston Globe, OECD, Business Insider, Education Week, Marginal Revolution
Shorter versions - NBER Digest, NBER Reporter and EconoFact Brief
Higher Education
“The Economics of Free College”, Economists for Inclusive Prosperity, Policy Brief.
My NYT column about free college
Interview with me about free college on HKS PolicyCast
My Hamilton Project paper about how to fund tuition-free college with a Federal matching grant
My NYT column about community college funding and economic recovery
Press coverage: 2022 Economic Report of the President, Harvard Magazine, CNBC, Bloomberg, Inside Higher Ed
“The Value of Postsecondary Credentials in the Labor Market: An Experimental Study” (with Noam Yuchtman, Amira Abulafi, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz), American Economic Review, 106(3): 778-806.
Press Coverage - 2022 Economic Report of the President, Washington Post, The Atlantic, US News & World Report, Brookings; Inside Higher Ed
Summary by American Economic Association
“Accountability in U.S. Higher Education: Applying Lessons from K-12 Experience to Higher Education” (with David Figlio), Journal of Economic Perspectives, 30(3): 33-56.
“The Competitive Effects of Online Education”, (with Mike Lovenheim and Rich Patterson), forthcoming in Productivity in Higher Education (Caroline Hoxby and Kevin Stange, eds.) Also published as NBER Working Paper No. 22749.
Press Coverage: Inside Higher Ed
“Can Online Learning Bend the Higher Education Cost Curve?” (with Claudia Goldin, Lawrence Katz, and Noam Yuchtman), AEA Papers & Proceedings, 105(5): 496-501.
My NYT column about online learning
Press Coverage: New America Foundation, Brookings, VoxEU, Education Next
“For-Profit Colleges” (with Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz). The Future of Children, 23(1): 137-163.
“The For-Profit Postsecondary Education Sector: Nimble Critters or Agile Predators?” (with Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz), Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26(1): 139-164.
Press Coverage: 2022 Economic Report of the President, New York Times, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Inside Higher Ed, Education Week, Chronicle of Higher Education, Wilson Quarterly
Senate HELP Committee Report on For-Profit Education
“Into College, Out of Poverty? Policies to Increase the Postsecondary Attainment of the Poor” (with Susan Dynarski), in Targeting Investments in Children: Fighting Poverty When Resources Are Limited, Philip Levine and David Zimmerman (eds.), University of Chicago Press.
Long-Run Impacts of Early and K-12 Schooling
“Partners in Crime” (with Steve Billings and Steve Ross), American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 11(1): 126-150.
“School Accountability, Postsecondary Attainment, and Earnings” (with Sarah Cohodes, Jennifer Jennings and Sandy Jencks), Review of Economics and Statistics, 98(5): 848-862.
Education Next non-technical writeup
“Do Differences in School Quality Matter More Than We Thought? New Evidence on Educational Opportunity in the 21st Century” (with Jennifer Jennings, Sandy Jencks, Maya Lopuch and Beth Schueler), Sociology of Education, 88(1): 56-82.
“School Choice, School Quality and Postsecondary Attainment” (with Justine Hastings, Tom Kane, and Doug Staiger) American Economic Review, 104(3): 991-1014.
“School Segregation, Educational Attainment, and Crime: Evidence from the End of Busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg” (with Steve Billings and Jonah Rockoff), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(1): 435-476.
Press Coverage: Washington Post, New York Times, Slate, The Economist, Equitable Growth
“Better Schools, Less Crime?” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126(4): 2063-2115.
Education Next non-technical writeup
“Early Childhood Intervention and Life-Cycle Skill Development: Evidence from Head Start” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1(3): 111-134.
Press Coverage: New York Times, Washington Post, 2022 Economic Report of the President
My NYT op ed about public pre-K; Boston Review column about expanding access to pre-K
Follow up of younger Head Start cohorts finds mixed results; Chalkbeat discussion of two articles
Other Topics
“Education and Innovation” (with Barbara Biasi and Petra Moser), NBER Working Paper No. 28544, March.
“Providing Performance Information in Education: An Experimental Evaluation in Colombia” (with Felipe Barrera-Osorio, Kathryn Gonzalez and Francisco Lagos), Journal of Public Economics, 186: 104185.
Online Appendix A and Appendix B
“Can States Take Over and Turn Around School Districts? Evidence from Lawrence, Massachusetts" (with Beth Schueler and Josh Goodman), Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 39(2): 311-332.
“Using School Choice Lotteries to Test Measures of School Effectiveness”, AEA Papers & Proceedings, 104(5): 406-411.
“The Lengthening of Childhood” (with Susan Dynarski), Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22(3): 71-92.
Press coverage: New York Times, Slate, Mother Jones, Boston Globe,