Seth Zimmerman, a prominent scholar of labor economics and public finance, with a focus on the economics of education, was recently appointed the Eli and Edythe Broad Professor of Economics, Education, and Management.
Zimmerman, who is a member of the faculty at the Yale School of Management (SOM) and a
Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, also has a secondary appointment in the Department of Economics in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
"By any measure, Professor Zimmerman is one of the most distinguished scholars in the world on the economics of education," said Kerwin K. Charles, the Indra K. Nooyi Dean at Yale School of Management. "He enjoys tremendous esteem from his colleagues, and he has produced a body of impactful and policy-relevant research that has profoundly affected his field."
In his research, Zimmerman addresses important, timely questions about the role of education and educational institutions in student success and the creation of economic opportunities for students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. He has explored topics related to families' schooling decisions and the role of information and beliefs about school quality therein; has estimated the returns to higher education; and has evaluated the efficacy of education policy, ranging from financial aid to school infrastructure investments.
Zimmerman draws on a range of methodological approaches in his research, from quasi experimental and experimental research designs to model-based estimation and counterfactual policy analyses. This has yielded 12 peer-reviewed journal and conference proceedings papers to date, five of which were placed in one of the five flagship journals in the field of economics.
What sets Zimmerman apart, Charles said, is "the substantial real-world connection and impact of his work." As a Ph.D. student, he began working with the New Haven Public School District to study the city's centralized school choice mechanism. His insights have yielded tangible changes to the city's implementation of school choice across its many educational options. At the state level, he supports education policy as a member of the Connecticut State Board of Education. And working at the national level, he has partnered with the government of Chile to evaluate how AI-powered platforms can help students get matched to better schools.
Zimmerman, who earned his Ph.D. at Yale in 2014, returned to the university in 2020 from the University of Chicago. In the years since, he has been one of the most valuable contributors to the economics group at Yale SOM. "His junior colleague mentoring, and more broadly, insights and collegiality have vastly improved the group, and his contributions to the school have been significant," Charles said. "Seth's teaching is outstanding, and he has been instrumental in the early success of Yale SOM master's in public education management."
In addition to his Ph.D., Zimmerman earned an M.Phil. and M.A at Yale. He received his B.A. from Dartmouth College.
