: What inspired you to research into school choice and charter schools? This work includes quasi-experimental studies of the effects of charter schools on test scores and post-secondary outcomes, a study documenting and explaining variation in effectiveness across Head Start childcare centers, and an analysis of differences in the demand for school quality across demographic groups. BER Staff Writer Parmita Das sat down with Professor Walters on 11 April, 2019 for the following interview: Parmita Das: Id like to begin by speaking to you about how your personal journey led you to economics and then delve deeper into your research interests. Christopher Walters | Research UC Berkeley Chris Walters Berkeley Opportunity LabResearch & Resources Articles Cited by Public access Co-authors. Berkeley Opportunity LabSummary Blocks BlogChris Walters on The Power June 14, 2021 Chris Walters' research on the longterm effects of universal pre-school was recently featured in the New York Times. It was a pleasure to interview you. I was interested in history and philosophy as an undergrad. Veuillez ressayer plus tard. He received a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in 2012. Copyright 2015 UC Regents. in the Production of Early Childhood In my graduate classes, readings, and recent work in top journals in this area, I got interested in the combination of choices and experiments that were on the frontier of the education literature. x p 3 WlO^8a7 ">-4[Q ]>o1mOyi vtu3Lsf5f.Dy;[.Zqjz{nLf ZoS&$ This virtual presentation series assembles researchers in healthcare and education policy to present work from the Opportunity Labs Labor Science Initiative, providing the opportunity for researchers to exchange insights from exploring issues of inequality and opportunity using new data science tools. My work also involves developing and applying econometric tools to answer questions of practical interest. I always kind of knew I liked school, so I knew I was probably going to go to grad school or something, but I didnt know exactly what. I never had a real job and I felt like I was pretty good at school, and I decided I was gonna keep doing it. California, Berkeley, College of Letters and slides_2 - Econ 244, Lecture II: Instrumental Variables Chris Walters Your email address will not be published. Low-achieving, non-white and poor students stand to gain the most academically from attending charter schools but are less likely to seek charter school enrollment than higher-achieving, more advantaged students who live closer to charter schools. His research focuses on the topics in labor economics and the economics of education, including early childhood programs, school effectiveness, and labor market discrimination. The questions that labor economists focus on are very intimately linked to actual, concrete measures of well-being in peoples livestheir wages, their employment outcomes, what their careers look like. All rights reserved. Source: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57a3c0fcd482e9189b09e101/t/63123d116c98c17ed44547cf/1662139669658/PowerOfPreK_InBrief.pdf, Tagged: Chris Walters, Child and Family Economic Security, Education & Child Development. Interpreting tests of school VAM validity. Understanding Boston. Research brief summarizing work by Abhay P. Aneja and Carlos F. Avenancio-Len. So I would say the modern applied micro paradigm, especially the way that I was taught in graduate school, is that you need a good experiment to be able to say anything interesting about a social science question. Tagged: Education & Child Development, Racial Equity & Economic Opportunity, University of California, Berkeley207 Giannini HallBerkeley, CA 94720, Email: info.olab@berkeley.eduPhone: 510-642-4361Support O-LabSubscribe to our newsletter. 2022 Methods Lecture, Christopher Walters, "Empirical Bayes Title. Christopher Walters joined the Berkeley faculty as an assistant professor in 2013 after completing a PhD in economics at MIT. Editors Note: If youre interested in learning more about labor economics, we had a graduate student interview that touched on similar topics, linked. That question is premised on the idea that the return on human capital investment is largest in the early years of schooling. UCB E-mail: crwalters@econ.berkeley.edu Mailing Address: Im also interested in, at least to some extent, theoretical models of how people make choices and how their choices are linked to the benefits of the programs that are available to them. CW: A lot of my work is secondary analysis of existing data sets: either experiments that other people have run, or administrative datasets that have something that looks like a quasi-experiment, like lotteries that I mentioned. Research brief summarizing work by Ellora Derenoncourt and Claire Montialoux. His research focuses on Labor Economics and the Economics of Education. Could you begin by telling me about your background and how it helped shape your academic focus, and what experiences helped you find your passion for economics? Im not sure all economists would agree with me, but I think our best evidence suggests theres actually pretty large returns to human capital investment at all different stages of the educational career, including the college attendance decision. Current address for Chris is 3236 King Strt, Berkeley, CA 94703-2448. Faculty profiles | Department of Economics I was kind of attracted to that set of questions; answering questions about real sources of well-being or lack thereof in peoples lives. (Economics, Statistics), University of California, San Diego M.A. Chris Walters research on the longterm effects of universal pre-school was recently featured in the New York Times. Demand for Effective Charter Schools. I have a few different projects but most of them have that feature, in one way or another. Berkeley - School of Law View profile . Christopher Walters at University of California Berkeley | Rate My Chris Walters Berkeley Opportunity LabResearch & Resources Research Brief The Power of Pre-K August 31, 2022 Research brief summarizing work by O-Lab affiliate Christopher Walters (UC Berkeley), Guthrie Gray-Lobe (University of Chicago), and Parag Pathak (MIT). BER Staff Writer Parmita Das sat down with Professor Walters on 11 April, 2019 for . Source: http://www.olab.berkeley.edu/symposium-on-labor-science-in-healthcare-and-education-research, Tagged: Chris Walters, Ben Handel, Ziad Obermeyer, Labor Science, Education & Child Development, Child and Family Economic Security, Health & Healthcare, University of California, Berkeley207 Giannini HallBerkeley, CA 94720, Email: info.olab@berkeley.eduPhone: 510-642-4361Support O-LabSubscribe to our newsletter. Copyright 2015 UC Regents. Berkeley Opportunity Lab, University of California, Berkeley , Berkeley, CA, U.S.A. Phone: (540) 392-5641 Privacy| Accessibility | Nondiscrimination. 28, 2019 2:15 PM - 3:30 PM, Room ES 1047, Eilert Sundts hus Christopher Walters Abstract But they plan to, once they. Science, Augmenting State Capacity for Child Development: Experimental Evidence from India, Race and the Mismeasure of School Quality, Methods for Measuring School Effectiveness, Simple and Credible Value-Added Estimation Using Centralized School Assignment, Policy Evaluation with Multiple Instrumental Variables, The Long-Term Effects of Universal Preschool in Boston, Systemic Discrimination Among Large U.S. For example, for marginal college students in the United States, in my view, some of the best evidence suggests that the return to a year of college for students at the margin between attending a four-year college and not is something in the order of 10% per year or higher. So, do you think the outcome or decision-making mechanism would change for that person, and would differ from the work you did on charter schools for example? In that strand of my work, Im reanalyzing a large-scale experiment that the Department of Health and Human Services ran on the Head Start program, where people were randomly admitted or not admitted to Head Start. Who Discriminates in Hiring? A New Study Can Tell. That question is premised on the idea that the return on human capital investment is largest in the early years of schooling. CW: I think my choice to focus on labor instead of other subfields of economics is a combination of the set of questions you get to answer in labor and the sort of research philosophy of the field, which are linked to each other. And I think that evidence is convincing, but I think theres also more recent evidence that even at later stages in their careerlike middle and high school, or even collegethere is pretty large returns on human capital investment as well. Berkeley Opportunity Lab, University of California, Berkeley , Berkeley, CA, U.S.A. I have a few different projects but most of them have that feature, in one way or another. For example, for marginal college students in the United States, in my view, some of the best evidence suggests that the return to a year of college for students at the margin between attending a four-year college and not is something in the order of 10% per year or higher. High Schools on College Preparation, My research focuses on labor economics and the economics of education, with an emphasis on school performance at the primary and early childhood levels. PD: So what made the question of Industry or Grad School clear to you? NBER SI Methods Lecture: Empirical Bayes Methods -- Theory and Application (with Jiaying Gu, 2022; AEA Continuing Education Program: Labor Economics and Applied Econometrics (, AEA Continuing Education Program: Cross-Section Econometrics (, UC Berkeley Economics 244: Applied Econometrics, Ph.D. level (Fall 2015, 2017-2019, 2021, Spring 2021, 2023), UC Berkeley Economics 250A: Labor Economics I, Ph.D. level (Spring 2018, Fall 2018-2019, 2021, Spring 2021, 2023), UC Berkeley Economics 152: Wage Theory and Public Policy, undergraduate level (Spring 2015-2016, 2018-2020), University of Chicago Economics 34620: Topics in Human Capital (Spring 2017), UC Berkeley Economics 250B: Labor Economics II, Ph.D. level (Spring 2014-2016). I have a couple projects on the Head Start program, which is a public preschool program for underprivileged kids in the United States. Were interested in developing methods that can actually be used in real datasets to answer important policy questions, and I was attracted to those methods as well, in addition to the questions. : So what made the choice of subfield in economics clear for you? Berkeley Opportunity LabFaculty & StaffChristopher Walters Interview with Christopher Walters - Berkeley Economic Review In grad school I was sort of interested in labor markets and how people accumulate the kinds of skills that they sell on the labor market, but there is a lot of different sub-questions under that. Its very practical and concrete, and not very abstract. Walters is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Faculty Affiliate at the MIT School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative (SEII) and an affiliate of J-PAL North America. By that I mean a setting where you have something that looks like a well-controlled or randomized comparison where some group of people get access to some program or opportunity and another set of people randomly dont. Chris Walters' research on the longterm effects of universal pre-school was recently featured in the New York Times. He is a Faculty Research Fellow in the National Bureau of Economic Research programs on education . : A lot of my work is secondary analysis of existing data sets: either experiments that other people have run, or administrative datasets that have something that looks like a quasi-experiment, like lotteries that I mentioned. PDF CHRISTOPHER R. WALTERS - eml.berkeley.edu Summary of research by Janet Currie, John Voorheis, and Reed Walker. University of California, Berkeley | College of Letters & Science, School choice; school effectiveness; early childhood interventions, Economics of education; human capital; discrete choice modeling; program evaluation, 530 Evans Hall #3880, Berkeley, California 94720-3880. In grad school I was sort of interested in labor markets and how people accumulate the kinds of skills that they sell on the labor market, but there is a lot of different sub-questions under that. Christopher Walters, University of California, Berkeley Professor Walters is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Faculty Research Fellow in the programs on education and labor studies at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Walters is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Faculty Affiliate at the MIT School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative (SEII) and an affiliate of J-PAL North America. Chris Walters, (925) 876-3294, Berkeley Public Records Instantly Christopher Walters' Homepage - University of California, Berkeley I didnt take any math my first couple of years, but then I sort of happened to take an economics class by chance and I realized it was a way of answering a lot of the same social questions I was interested in studying in a more quantitative way. Benefits from KIPP? Verified email at berkeley.edu. : Thats a fun answer. Chris Walters is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. slides 4 - Econ 244 Lecture IV: Regression Discontinuity Chris Walters The questions that labor economists focus on are very intimately linked to actual, concrete measures of well-being in peoples livestheir wages, their employment outcomes, what their careers look like. By that I mean a setting where you have something that looks like a well-controlled or randomized comparison where some group of people get access to some program or opportunity and another set of people randomly dont. University of California His research focuses on the topics in labor economics and the economics of education, including early childhood programs, school effectiveness, and labor market discrimination. Christopher Walters Asim Khwaja Campos, Christopher B.A., B.S. In my graduate classes, readings, and recent work in top journals in this area, I got interested in the combination of choices and experiments that were on the frontier of the education literature. Source:https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/10/briefing/universal-pre-k-biden-agenda.html, Tagged: Chris Walters, Education & Child Development, Child and Family Economic Security, University of California, Berkeley207 Giannini HallBerkeley, CA 94720, Email: info.olab@berkeley.eduPhone: 510-642-4361Support O-LabSubscribe to our newsletter, Hilary Hoynes featured in Ezra Klein column: What the Rich Don't Want to Admit About the Poor, Emmanuel Saez: California Should Pass a Small Tax on Big Wealth. 3 0 obj PDF University of California, Berkeley The way Im collecting most of my data is opportunistic in some senseits like data thats generated and out there in the world, either by previous experiments or by government bodies that are implementing or managing programsand Im looking for opportunities to use that sort of data to answer questions about the effects of programs on peoples outcomes. Sort. Department website Christopher Walters Associate Professor of Economics Christopher Walters joined the economics department as an assistant professor after receiving his PhD in economics from MIT in 2013. : Im not sure I totally agree on the premise of that question. Your email address will not be published. Check out the article or read the full paper here. And so thats a secondary analysis on an existing experiment that someone else ran. Berkeley, CA 94720, Office: 631E Evans Hall The researchers Patrick Kline and Christopher Walters of Berkeley and Evan K. Rose of Chicago are not ready to reveal the names of companies on their list. Christopher Walters - Google Scholar Berkeley Opportunity LabResearch & ResourcesThe Power of Pre-K : Sure! Charter School Effectiveness. : I think my choice to focus on labor instead of other subfields of economics is a combination of the set of questions you get to answer in labor and the sort of research philosophy of the field, which are linked to each other. I went into college thinking I was going to do more humanities-related disciplines. Christopher Walters | Research UC Berkeley Christopher Walters Faculty URL Contact (510) 643-8596 Update your profile Research Expertise and Interest labor economics, applied econometrics, economics of education, structural modeling Research Description Tagged: Chris Walters, Education & Child Development, Child and Family Economic Security, University of California, Berkeley207 Giannini HallBerkeley, CA 94720, Email: info.olab@berkeley.eduPhone: 510-642-4361Support O-LabSubscribe to our newsletter, Hilary Hoynes featured in Ezra Klein column: What the Rich Don't Want to Admit About the Poor, Hilary Hoynes and Reed Walker on the Future of Family. In that strand of my work, Im reanalyzing a large-scale experiment that the Department of Health and Human Services ran on the Head Start program, where people were randomly admitted or not admitted to Head Start. Berkeley Opportunity LabO-Lab in the NewsChris Walters on The Power The study showed that winners of the pre-school lottery in Boston had lower incarceration rates and higher rates of college enrollment, although evidence for better test scores was mixed. A part of that was opportunity. Disclaimer: The views published in this journal are those of the individual authors or speakers and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of Berkeley Economic Review staff, the Undergraduate Economics Association, the UC Berkeley Economics Department and faculty, or the University of California, Berkeley in general. Homepage: http://emlab.berkeley.edu/~crwalters PD: We learned in Econ 2, a basic economics class, that the return on investment in human capital decreases as a person progresses through their education. Christopher R. Walters | NBER Christopher Walters joined the Berkeley faculty as an assistant professor in 2013 after completing a PhD in economics at MIT. Chris Walters UC Berkeley Economics 244 Applied Econometrics 3277 Introduction from ECON 244 at University of California, Berkeley Box 237, Bayville, NJ, 08721 Im trying to understand what we can learn from that: who benefits from the program and how that relates to choices to participate. Christopher Walters is an Associate Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). And so looking at the charter school literature, it was mostly focused on evaluating, in a kind of causal sense, what the impacts of charter schools are and other school-choice programs like that on the people that participate, since the programs choose through a lottery system. Could you begin by telling me about your background and how it helped shape your academic focus, and what experiences helped you find your passion for economics? UC Berkeleys Premier Undergraduate Economics Journal, PARMITA DAS JANUARY 29TH, 2020 COPY EDITOR: SHAWN SHIN. In modern applied microeconomics, it is very important to have very detailed data on peoples choices and outcomes, so I was looking for an area where I could get a combination of the right data and the right question. CHRISTOPHER R. WALTERS Associate Professor of Economics: CV (Download PDF) Mailing Address: University of California Department of Economics 530 Evans Hall #3880 . PD: What inspired you to research into school choice and charter schools? Leveraging Lotteries for School Value-added: Testing and Estimation, Evaluating CW: Im not sure. Theres certainly a lot of evidence that highly effective preschool programs have very large social returns. Econ 244, Lecture IV: Regression Discontinuity Chris Walters University of California, Berkeley October 2, Christopher Walters: Sure! Study asks why students with more to gain from charter schools are less likely to apply, Berkeley Research Infrastructure Commons (RIC), Intellectual Property & Technology Transfer. Good instruments typically come from institutional knowledge combined with plausible assumptions about behavioral relationships Well-known example: Angrist and Krueger (1991) study of the returns to education Chris Walters (UC Berkeley) Economics 244: Applied Econometrics 13/164 Les articles suivants sont fusionns dans GoogleScholar. Christopher Walters joined the Berkeley faculty as an assistant professor in 2013 after completing a PhD in economics at MIT. PD: What are some areas you are looking into now and how are you looking to collect your data? Im not sure all economists would agree with me, but I think our best evidence suggests theres actually pretty large returns to human capital investment at all different stages of the educational career, including the college attendance decision. Scaling Up Boston's Charter School Sector, On Heckits, LATE, and Numerical Equivalence, The % Christopher Walters Professor in the Economics department at University of California Berkeley 100% Would take again 2.7 Level of Difficulty Rate Professor Walters I'm Professor Walters Submit a Correction Professor Walters 's Top Tags Clear grading criteria Amazing lectures Lecture heavy So many papers Caring I think because of that focus on those sorts of questions, labor is also, from a methodological perspective, a very practical field. Social Security: An Answer for Developing Nations, Play-by-Play of Warren-care: Financing the Behemoth, Bernie Sanders Moral Crusade to Implement Medicare for All, Unbonded: Liz Truss and the collapse of trust in the British Parliament, LIV Golf: Startup Leagues and the Future of Sports. Tagged: Chris Walters, Child and Family Economic Security, Education & Child Development Newer Post Perspectives on the Impact of the Expanded Child Tax Credit and the Development of a New Research Agenda on Child and Family Economic Well-Being Older Post New Student Research Builds Evidence on Different Dimensions of Inequality %PDF-1.3 : Thats a good question too. So, do you think the outcome or decision-making mechanism would change for that person, and would differ from the work you did on charter schools for example? A part of that was opportunity. Free to Choose: Can School Choice Reduce Student Achievement?