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
Duke Box: 90245
Email Address: charles.clotfelter@duke.edu
Web Page: http://big-timesports.com

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

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

  1. Charles T. Clotfelter. Big-Time Sports in American Universities. Cambridge University Press, 2011. [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]

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 a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. His major research interests are in the economics of education, the nonprofit sector, and public finance.

He is the author of Big-Time Sports in American Universities (Cambridge University Press, 2011), After Brown: The Rise and Retreat of School Desegregation (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 is also coauthor (with Philip Cook) of Selling Hope: State Lotteries in America (Princeton University Press, 1989) and has coauthored or edited five other books pertaining to higher education and the nonprofit sector. He was co-winner of the Gladys M. Kammerer prize, awarded by the American Political Science Association for the best political science publication in the field of U.S. national policy in 2004, for After Brown: The Rise and Retreat of School Desegregation. In 2011, he was selected to give the Spencer Foundation Award Lecture at the meetings of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Clotfelter received a B.A. from Duke University in 1969, where he majored in history, summa cum laude, and he received a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1974. Before coming to Duke, he taught at the University of Maryland, spending his last year there on leave at the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis. While at Duke, he has served as vice provost for academic policy and planning, vice chancellor, and vice provost for academic programs. 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.

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

Charles T. Clotfelter