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Charles T. Clotfelter

Charles T. Clotfelter

Z. Smith Reynolds Professor of Public Policy and Duke Population Research Institute and Professor of Economics and Law; Director, Center for the Study of Philanthropy & Voluntarism
Contact Info 
Location: 221 Sanford Building
Office Phone: (919) 613-7361
Email Address:  send me a message
Mailing Address: 221 Sanford Bldg Corner of Science Dr. and Towerview Rd. Box 90245 Duke University Durham, NC 27708
Teaching (Fall 2012):

  • PUBPOL 590S.02, ADV TOP IN PUBLIC POLICY Synopsis
    Sanford 150, MW 01:25 PM-02:40 PM
  • PUBPOL 810.01, MICRO ECO/PUB POL MAKING Synopsis
    Sanford 05, MWF 08:45 AM-09:35 AM
Education:
  • PhD, Harvard University, 1974
  • M.A., Harvard University, 1972
  • B.A., summa cum laude, Duke University, 1969

Research Interests:
Economics of Education, Social Policy, and Public Finance

Areas of Interest:
Economics of education
Higher education
School desegregation
Economics of nonprofit organizations and philanthropy
State lotteries

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

  1. Charles T. Clotfelter, Big-Time Sports in American Universities (2011), Cambridge University Press [website] .
  2. Charles T. Clotfelter, Uncle Sam Takes One for the Team, Washington Post (December 31, 2010) [link] .
  3. Charles T. Clotfelter, Is Sports in Your Mission Statement?, The Chronicle of Higher Education (October 24, 2010) [pdf].
  4. Charles T. Clotfelter, "Hold That Line? For 80 Years, Universities Haven’t,” Raleigh News and Observer, October 22, 2009; also published as “College Athletics under Fire,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 25, 2009; “80 Years of Trade-Offs in College Sports,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 27, 2009 [pdf].
Charles Clotfelter is Z. Smith Reynolds Professor of Public Policy Studies and Professor of Economics and Law at Duke University, where he has taught since 1979. He is also director of the Center for the Study of Philanthropy and Voluntarism at Duke and is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. His major research interests are in the economics of education, the nonprofit sector, public finance and tax policy.

He is the author of After Brown: The Rise and Retreat of School Desegregation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), Buying the Best: Cost Escalation in Elite Higher Education (Princeton University Press, 1996), and Federal Tax Policy and Charitable Giving (University of Chicago Press, 1985). He has co-authored books pertaining to the costs of higher education, lotteries, and philanthropy and the nonprofit sector.

He taught at the University of Maryland from 1974 to 1979, spending his last year there on leave at the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis, where he was a Brookings Economic Policy Fellow. While at Duke, he has served as vice provost for academic policy and planning from 1983 to 1985, vice chancellor from 1985 to 1988 and vice provost for academic programs from 1993 to 1994. He has also served as president of the Southern Economic Association. During the 2005/06 year he was a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.

Clotfelter was born in Birmingham, Ala., and grew up in Atlanta, Ga.