Michael Lovenheim

About

Michael Lovenheim is a Professor of Economics in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and the ILR School at Cornell University. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Senior Fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution. His research areas include labor economics, public finance, and the economics of education, with a particular focus on the interplay between education systems and the labor market. His recent work examines the effects of state higher education funding on long-term educational and financial outcomes, the impact of college major choices on student earnings, and how these choices influence gender and racial earnings inequality. Additionally, he studies the labor market returns to college coursework, the productivity of for-profit colleges, and the influence of teachers unions on school districts and students. Beyond education, his research explores how housing wealth affects household investment decisions, the relationship between worker skills and labor market power, and changes in the skill content of private sector union coverage. Lovenheim co-authored the first comprehensive textbook on the Economics of Education in 2017. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan in 2007, joined Cornell in 2009 after a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford, and served as the Donald C. Opatrny ’74 Chair of the Department of Economics from 2018 to 2023. Currently, he is a co-editor at the Journal of Human…

Research topics

• Political Science
• Economics
• Medicine
• Business
• Computer Science
• Computer Security
• Public economics
• Statistics
• Psychology
• Environmental health

Selected publications

• The Economics of Tobacco Regulation: A Comprehensive Review

  Journal of Economic Literature · 2022 · 107 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Tobacco regulation has been a major component of health policy in the developed world since the UK Royal College of Physicians' and the US Surgeon General's reports in the 1960s. Such regulation, which has intensified in the past two decades, includes cigarette taxation, place-based smoking bans in areas ranging from bars and restaurants to workplaces, and regulations designed to make tobacco products less desirable. More recently, the availability of alternative products, most notably e-cigaret…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Monopsony, Job Tasks and Labour Market Concentration

  The Economic Journal · 2024-01-23 · 16 citations

  article

  Abstract This paper extends the monopsony literature by taking a task-based approach and estimating the causal effect of concentration on labour market outcomes. Using detailed employer–employee data from Norway, we find that our job task-based measure shows lower degrees of concentration than conventional industry- and occupation-based measures. Exploiting mass lay-offs as exogenous shocks to local labour demand, we show that workers who experience mass separations in more concentrated markets…

  PublisherDOI

• Returns to different postsecondary investments: Institution type, academic programs, and credentials

  Handbook of the economics of education · 2022-12-29 · 15 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Returns to College Major Choice: Average and Distributional Effects, Career Trajectories, and Earnings Variability

  The Review of Economics and Statistics · 2024-09-16 · 10 citations

  article

  Abstract A growing literature examining labor market returns to college major is motivated by large returns to skill. Prior research focuses on mean effects rather than earnings growth and variability. Using administrative data from Texas, we find that mean differences mask important features of the returns to college majors. First, earnings growth varies across fields. Second, there is considerable effect heterogeneity across workers. Third, major choice affects earnings variability within work…

  PublisherDOI

• The long-run impacts of banning affirmative action in US higher education

  Oxford Review of Economic Policy · 2024-01-01 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract This paper estimates the long-run impacts of banning affirmative action on men and women from under-represented minority (URM) racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Using data from the US Census and American Community Survey, we use a difference-in-differences framework to compare the college degree completion, graduate degree completion, earnings, and employment of URM individuals to non-URM individuals before and after affirmative action bans went into effect across several U…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Scott A. Imberman

  Michigan State University

  110 shared

• Rodney Andrews

  The University of Texas at Dallas

  62 shared

• Samuel Kleiner

  Federal Trade Commission

  43 shared

• Joel Slemrod

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  42 shared

• Kevin J. Mumford

  42 shared

• Kevin Stange

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  41 shared

• Sarah Cohodes

  40 shared

• Daniel Grossman

  37 shared

Awards & honors

• Senior Fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution
• Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Resear…
• Donald C. Opatrny ’74 Chair of the Department of Economics a…
• Inaugural Director of the Cornell Center for Education Polic…

Similar researchers at Cornell University

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