Charles T. Clotfelter, Z. Smith Reynolds Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics and Law; Director, Center for the Study of Philanthropy & Voluntarism  

Office Location: 221 Sanford Building
Office Phone: (919) 613-7361
Email Address: charles.clotfelter@duke.edu

Areas of Expertise

  • Education
    • Accountability
    • Achievement
    • Education Finance
    • Higher Education
    • Racial/Ethnic Inequalities & Segregation
  • Public Finance, Education Finance
  • Social Policy, Lotteries and Gambling

Education:
PhD, Harvard University, 1974
M.A., Harvard University, 1972
B.A., summa cum laude, Duke University, 1969

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

Typical Courses Taught:

  • Pubpol 310, Microeconomics/pub pol making
  • Pubpol 195, Economics of education
  • Econ 195, Economics of education

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

  1. C.T. Clotfelter. “Hold That Line? For 80 Years, Universities Haven’t”.  Raleigh News and Observer (October 22, 2009).  [author's comments]
  2. Clotfelter, Charles T., Helen F. Ladd, and Jacob L.Vigdor. "“Are Teacher Absences Worth Worrying about in the U.S.?”." Education Finance and Policy 4 (Spring 2009).  [abs]
  3. Clotfelter, Charles T., Helen F. Ladd, and Jacob L.Vigdor. "“The Academic Achievement Gap in Grades 3 to 8,”." Review of Economics and Statistics 91.May (May 2009): 420-431.  [abs]
  4. C.T. Clotfelter. Clotfelter, Charles, “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..  2009.
  5. Charles T. Clotfelter, Helen F. Ladd, and Jacob L. Vigdor. ""Would Higher Salaries Keep Teachers in High-Poverty Schools? Evidence from a Policy Intervention in North Carolina"." Journal of Public Economics 92 (2008): 1352-1370.

Bio/Profile
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.

Charles T. Clotfelter