Associate Professor, Human Development and Social Policy
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research
BiographyJonathan Guryan is an Associate Professor of Human Development and Social Policy and of Economics, Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research and a courtesy member of the Economics Department and the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University. He is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Research Consultant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Much of his research falls into two main categories, understanding the sources and consequences of racial inequality and the economics of education. His work on these subjects has been published in leading journals such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, Developmental Psychology, Educational Psychology, and the Review of Economics and Statistics.
In one study he found that the court-ordered school desegregation plans of the 1970’s led to declines in high school dropout rates among black students. In another study, with Kerwin Charles, he evaluated the role that racial prejudice plays in the determination of wage differences between blacks and whites. In ongoing work with Kenneth Chay and Bhashkar Mazumder, he is studying the effect of early access to health care on the black-white test score gap. He has also studied the labor market for teachers; a subsidy for investments in Internet access in schools; technology assisted learning in classrooms; demand for lottery tickets; and peer effects among professional golfers.
His work has been funded by the W.T. Grant Foundation and the National Science Foundation. He has also recently been awarded a grant by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences to conduct and study an experimental evaluation of an intervention designed to reduce truancy in the Chicago Public Schools.
Prior to joining the Northwestern faculty in 2010, Jonathan Guryan taught at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, where he was Assistant Professor of Economics from 2000-2004 and Associate Professor of Economics from 2004-2010.
Curriculum VitaeView Jonathan Guryan's CV.
|2000||PhD, Economics||Massachusetts Institute of Technology|
|1996||AB, Economics||Princeton University|
Selected PublicationsFiglio, David, Guryan, Jonathan, Karbownik, Krzysztof, Roth, Jeffrey (December, 2014). The Effects of Poor Neonatal Health on Children's Cognitive Development. American Economic Review: 3921-3955.
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Charles, K., and J. Guryan (2011). Studying discrimination: Fundamental challenges and recent progress. Annual Review of Economics 3(1): 479Ė511.
Kim, J., and J. Guryan (February, 2010). The efficacy of a voluntary summer book reading intervention for low-income Latino children from language minority families. . Journal of Educational Psychology 102(1): 20-31.
Guryan, J., and M. Kearney (2010). Is Lottery Gambling Addictive?. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2(3): 90-110.
Guryan, Jonathan with Matt Notowidigdo and Kory Kroft (October, 2009). Peer Effects in the Workplace: Evidence from Random Groupings in Professional Golf Tournaments. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1(4): 34-68.
Guryan, Jonathan with Olivier Deschenes and Michael Greenstone (May, 2009). Climate Change and Birth Weight. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 99(2): 211-217.
Guryan, Jonathan (2009). The Race Between Education and Technology: A Review Article. Journal of Human Capital, Summer 2009: 3(2): 177-196.
Guryan, Jonathan with Joshua D. Angrist (October, 2008). Does Teacher Testing Raise Teacher Quality? Evidence from Teacher Certification Requirements. Economics of Education Review, 27(5): 483-503.
Guryan, Jonathan with Kerwin Charles (October, 2008). Prejudice and Wages: An Empirical Assessment of Beckerís The Economics of Discrimination. Journal of Political Economy, 116(5): 773-809.
Guryan, Jonathan with Erik Hurst and Melissa S. Kearney (2008). Parental Education and Parental Time with Children. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22(3).
Research InterestsUnderstanding the sources and consequences of racial inequality and the economics of education.
|HDSP 411||Quantitative Methods II: Regression Analysis This course is intended to be a continuation of the quantitative methods sequence that begins with Quantitative Methods I. The course will cover applied statistical methods, and will provide useful tools for students who intend to conduct their own statistical analyses, as well as those who want to become critical consumers of others' analyses. Topics to be covered include the use of data for descriptive and causal analyses, linear regression, experimental design, panel data methods, hierarchical linear models and instrumental variables.|
|LRN_SCI 451||Topics: Quantitative Methods II This course is intended to be a continuation of the quantitative methods sequence that begins with Quantitative Methods I. The course will cover applied statistical methods, and will provide useful tools for students who intend to conduct their own statistical analyses, as well as those who want to become critical consumers of others' analyses. Topics to be covered include the use of data for descriptive and causal analyses, linear regression, experimental design, panel data methods, hierarchical linear models and instrumental variables. Coursework will include both problem solving and computer-based assignments that involve conducting data analysis and writing and communicating descriptions of statistical results.|
|SOC_POL 331||Economics of Inequality and Discrimination Students learn core economic concepts and empirical tools to analyze the causes and consequences of inequality and discrimination. Topics include neighborhoods and stratification, housing policy, crime, earnings inequality, and the role of education in creating and reducing disparities. Prerequisites: ECON 202 and SESP 210 or equivalent.|
Works In Progress
The Effects of Poor Neonatal Health on Children's Cognitive Development
We make use of a new data resource, merged birth and school records for all children born in Florida from 1992 to 2002, to study the effects of birth weight on cognitive development from kindergarten through schooling. Using twin fixed effects models, we find that the effects of birth weight on cognitive development are essentially constant through the school career; that these effects are very similar across a wide range of family backgrounds; and that they are invariant to measures of school quality. We conclude that the effects of poor neonatal health on adult outcomes are therefore set very early.
Do Lottery Payments Induce Savings Behavior: Evidence From the Lab
This paper presents the results of a laboratory experiment designed to investigate whether the option of a Prize Linked Savings (PLS) product alters the likelihood that subjects choose to delay payment. By comparing PLS and standard savings products in a controlled way, we find strong evidence that a PLS payment option leads to greater rates of payment deferral than does a straightforward interest payment option of the same expected value. The appeal of the PLS option is strongest among men, self-reported lottery players, and subjects with low bank account balances. We use the results of our experiment to structurally estimate the parameters of the decision problem governing time preference, risk aversion, and probability weighting. We employ the parameter estimates in a series of policy simulations that compare the relative effectiveness of PLS products as compared to standard savings products.
Birth Cohort and the Black-White Achievement Gap: The Roles of Access and Health Soon After Birth
One literature documents a significant, black-white gap in average test scores, while another finds a substantial narrowing of the gap during the 1980ís, and stagnation in convergence after. We use two data sources Ė the Long Term Trends NAEP and AFQT scores for the universe of applicants to the U.S. military between 1976 and 1991 Ė to show: 1) the 1980ís convergence is due to relative improvements across successive cohorts of blacks born between 1963 and the early 1970ís and not a secular narrowing in the gap over time; and 2) the across-cohort gains were concentrated among blacks in the South. We then demonstrate that the timing and variation across states in the AFQT convergence closely tracks racial convergence in measures of health and hospital access in the years immediately following birth. We show that the AFQT convergence is highly correlated with post-neonatal mortality rates and not with neonatal mortality and low birth weight rates, and that this result cannot be explained by schooling desegregation and changes in family background. We conclude that investments in health through increased access at very early ages have large, long-term effects on achievement, and that the integration of hospitals during the 1960ís affected the test performance of black teenagers in the 1980ís.
Last Updated: 2015-01-11 12:09:40