I'm an Associate Professor of Education and Economics at Boston University, where I work on the economics of education policy. My research applies causal inference methods to large quantitative data sets in order to provide rigorous evidence on the impacts of education policies, particularly with respect to postsecondary issues, STEM coursework, and more recently the COVID-19 pandemic. My work has been published in peer-reviewed outlets such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, AER: Insights, AEJ: Applied Economics, AEJ: Economic Policy and the Journal of Labor Economics. It has been cited in multiple White House reports and featured by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and National Public Radio. I serve as co-editor of the Journal of Human Resources (JHR), sit on the board of the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), and am an NBER Research Associate and CESifo Research Network Fellow. Much of my policy-related work is done as a faculty affiliate of the BU Wheelock Education Policy Center (WEPC). I have a B.A. in physics from Harvard, an M.Phil. in education from Cambridge University, and a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University. Prior to starting my Ph.D., I was a public high school math teacher in Watertown, MA. In 2022-23, I served as a Senior Economist on the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, where I worked on both K-12 and postsecondary education policy.
Joshua Goodman
EdWorkingPapers
Kumon In: The Recent, Rapid Rise of Private Tutoring Centers
The increasing prevalence of private tutoring has received minimal scholarly attention in the United States. We use over 25 years of geocoded data on the universe of U.S. private tutoring centers to estimate the size and growth of this industry and to identify predictors of tutoring center… more →
The Pandemic’s Effect on Demand for Public Schools, Homeschooling, and Private Schools
The Covid-19 pandemic drastically disrupted the functioning of U.S. public schools, potentially changing the relative appeal of alternatives such as homeschooling and private schools. Using longitudinal student-level administrative data from Michigan and nationally representative data from the… more →
Inequality in Household Adaptation to Schooling Shocks: Covid-Induced Online Learning Engagement in Real Time
We use high frequency internet search data to study in real time how US households sought out online learning resources as schools closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. By April 2020, nationwide search intensity for both school- and parent-centered online learning resources had roughly doubled… more →
O Brother, Where Start Thou? Sibling Spillovers on College and Major Choice in Four Countries
Family and social networks are widely believed to influence important life decisions but identifying their causal effects is notoriously difficult. Using admissions thresholds that directly affect older but not younger siblings’ college options, we present evidence from the United States, Chile… more →
Take Two! SAT Retaking and College Enrollment Gaps
Only half of SAT-takers retake the exam, with even lower retake rates among low income and underrepresented minority (URM) students. We exploit discontinuous jumps in retake probabilities at multiples of 100, driven by left-digit bias, to estimate retaking’s causal effects. Retaking… more →
Heat and Learning
We demonstrate that heat inhibits learning and that school air-conditioning may mitigate this effect. Student fixed effects models using 10 million PSAT-retakers show hotter school days in years before the test reduce scores, with extreme heat being particularly damaging. Weekend and summer… more →