Faculty Research Grants and Creative Activity
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- Research Associate, Economic Policy Institute
‘Stars' shun teaching
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Fall 2004 l Capital University Journal Research Notes Article Entitled: ‘Stars' shun teaching |
A Sac State economics professor has entered the national fray over teacher quality with research that finds fewer “academic stars” are choosing to teach.
Sean Corcoran says the top 10 percent of high school students are now much less likely to become teachers than in the 1950s. That means today's students have a lower chance of learning from the high achievers.
On the flip side, he also says there has been just a slight decline in average teacher quality. The findings are based on math and verbal tests the teachers took while still in high school. Prior research links these standardized measures of the cognitive abilities of future teachers to their students' achievement.
“Wages have gone up since the 1950s in professions other than teaching—in particular in high-skilled professions like law and medicine—and it appears that top performing women have taken advantage of new opportunities to enter those higher paying professions,” he says. Because 75 percent of all teachers are women, he says, that has meant a sharp drop in high achievers who teach.
“Society needs to decide how much we need these high achievers in the classroom,” Corcoran says. “Do we want to pay enough to lure them back? Or are we better off with them doing other things, like finding cures for diseases?”
The research appears in recent issues of the American Economic Review , and the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management . Both were co-written with University of Maryland professors William Evans and Robert Schwab. Corcoran used long-term studies—some more than five decades old—that follow students from high school through their careers. He looked at the scores on standardized high school math and verbal tests of those who became teachers.
Details: www.csus.edu/indiv/c/corcorans/home.htm
- Settling the Smoke: Public Policy and Shareholder Wealth in the Cigarette Industry, with Rossitza Wooster.
- Comparing Health Information and Advertising Restrictions: A Meta-Analysis of U.S. Anti- Smoking Policies.
- Clean Indoor-Air Laws and Cigarette Demand: Restrictions vs. Enforcement.
- The Determinants of the Price Elasticity of Cigarettes: Evidence from State-Level Data.
- Health Care Spending and Health Outcomes: Evidence from U.S. Data, with Todd Cherry.
- Health Information and Cigarette Consumption: Supply and Spatial Considerations. The Extent of the Market: An Application of Convergence to Los Angeles Region Housing.
- Estimates of the Effect of the Clean Air Act on Pollution, with John List and Jason Shogren.
- Cyclicality and the Labor Market for Economists, with John List and Peter Orazem.
- “A Structural Equilibrium Model of the Market for Higher Education: Assessing the Impact of Eliminating Affirmative Action.”
- “Affirmative Action, Law School Admissions, and the Wage Distribution.”
- Principal Investigator for “Voting in the Commons: An Experimental Investigation,” Large Research Grant ($2,500), St. Lawrence University, 2000-2001.
- Principal Investigator for “Sincere vs. Strategic Voting in Primaries: Experimental Results,” (with Todd L. Cherry), Small Research Grant, St. Lawrence University, 1999-2000.
- “Accurate and Fair Class Ranks: One Step Closer with the Class Rank Index,” Summer 1997, ERS SPECTRUM, 15:3, 26-29.
- “College Majors, Job Types, and the Labor Market: Is College Major a Signal?” submitted to Journal of Human Resources.
- “Financial Aid and Student Bargaining Power,” submitted to Economics of Education Review.
- “Income, Neighborhood, and Demographic Effects on School-wide Student Achievement,” working paper.
- “A Hedonic Approach to Estimating the Demand for Higher Education,” working paper with Chuck Moul, Washington University.
- “Empirical Approaches to College Choice,” working paper.
- “Class Rank, GPA, and Valedictorians: How High Schools Rank Their Students,” working paper.
- “Adult Education: Equity in Service Delivery,” with Colleen Moore and Nancy Shulock, working paper.
- 2002-present - Affiliated Researcher
Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy,
California State University, Sacramento - 2000 - Research Assistant for Professor Barton Hamilton,
John Olin School of Business, Washington University - 1999 - Research Assistant for Professor Robert Pollak,
Department of Economics, Washington University - 1998-2000 - Research Assistant for Professor Donna Ginther,
Department of Economics, Washington University - 1995-1998 - Research Analyst
Peoria Unified School District, Glendale, Arizona - 1992-1993 - Research Assistant for Dr. Larry Diamond,
Hoover Institution, Stanford University<
- Summer 2000 Analysis of the Effectiveness of California’s Enterprise Zones, California Research Bureau, California State Library
- Summer 2001 Survey of California’s Working Latinos and Health Insurance: New Facts and Policy Challenges, University of Southern California and California HealthCare Foundation, with Howard Greenwald and Mark DiCamillo.
- Fall 2001 The CSUS Forecast of the Sacramento Region, advisor to the California Institute for County Government.
- Co-investigator in a study entitled “The Market Value of Commercial Real Property In Los Angeles County In 2002,” commissioned by the California Senate Office of Research and funded through the California Policy Research Center, University of California, November 2002-February 2003.
- Co-investigator in a study entitled “The Taxation of Telecommunications in California,” funded by a grant from the California Policy Research Center, University of California, Berkeley. July 2001-July 2002.
- Principal investigator in a California fiscal reform study entitled "Allocating Property Tax Revenues Under a Rate Cap: An Exploration of Alternative Strategies," funded by a grant from the Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco. June 2000- November 2001.
- Co-investigator in a study of the effects of electric utility deregulation on the property tax systems in California and other western states, funded by a grant from the California Energy Studies Program at UC Berkeley. October 1998-October 1999.
- Co-investigator in a study of Proposition 13 during a period of declining property values, funded by a grant from the Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco. Spring 1997-Summer 1998.
- Co-investigator in a property tax oversight study conducted for the California State Board of Equalization.
- Member of the Task Force on Fiscal Reform of the California Business and Higher Education Forum.
- Co-investigator in a property tax reform feasibility study conducted for the California Assembly Office of Research, January 1991-August 1991.
- Co-investigator in a benefit-cost analysis of scattered-site public housing for the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency and the Regional Office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1990-present.
- Member of the Williamson Act Study Group--a University of California research team assembled to conduct an evaluation of California's open space and agricultural land conservation and subvention program, 1988-1990.
- “Taking the Monetary Implications of a Monetary Model Seriously,” with Kevin Salyer, currently under revision for the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, August 2003.
- “Is Timing Everything? Investigating U.S. Monetary Policy with Interest-Rate Rules,” working paper, June 2003.
- “Excess Stock Price Volatility and Structural Breaks in Dividends,” with Aaron Smith, working paper, August 2003.
- “Circling the Wagons: The Fed’s Response to 9/11,” working paper, July 2003.
- Blonigen, Bruce A. and Rossitza B. Wooster. "CEO Turnover and Foreign Market Participation” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 9527. Under submission, February 2003.
- Wooster, Rossitza B. and Craig A. Gallet. "Settling the Smoke: Public Policy and Shareholder Wealth in the Cigarette Industry." Under Review.
- Wooster, Rossitza B. "Wealth Effects from Expansion in Transition Economies: Evidence from the U.S. Stock Market." Draft: August 1st, 2003.
- Wooster, Rossitza B. "Interdependence of Restructuring by Host Governments and Foreign Firms in Transition Economies." Draft: April 2002.
