Elizabeth U. Cascio
Professor
Appointments
Professor of Economics
DeWalt H. 1921 and Marie H. Ankeny Professorship in Economic Policy
Area of Expertise
education,
public economics,
labor economics
Biography
I am an economist specializing in the study of education, public policy, and children's well being in historical perspective. My research has drawn inspiration from major policy shifts in 20th century America, including the spread of publicly funded early education and passage of landmark federal civil rights, education, and immigration legislation. My recent work has focused on childcare and early education and on understanding how policy design, economic conditions, and political voice affect educational attainment and economic mobility.
My research has received financial support from the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation and has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Human Resources, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, the Journal of Public Economics, and the Journal of Urban Economics, among other outlets. In recent years, I have also occasionally authored policy pieces for The Hamilton Project.
In addition to my faculty appointment at Dartmouth College, I am a Research Associate in the Programs on Education, Development of the American Economy, and Children at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a Research Associate at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). I also currently serve as an Editor at the Journal of Labor Economics and a member of the editorial board of ILR Review, and I recently finished a two-year term as elected member of the Executive Board of the Society of Labor Economists. I received my B.A. summa cum laude from Franklin and Marshall College in 1997 and my Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 2003. I joined the Dartmouth faculty in 2006.
Education
A.B. Franklin and Marshall College
Ph.D. University of California at Berkeley
Publications
Teacher Salaries and Racial Inequality in Educational Attainment in the Mid-Century South (with Ethan Lewis). [Latest version, Online appendix] [Summary in The NBER Digest] Journal of Labor Economics, 42(S1): S95-S131, April 2024.
Does Universal Preschool Hit the Target? Program Access and Preschool Impacts. Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Human Resources 58(1), 1-42, January 2023. Revised version (August 2020). [Coverage in The New York Times (June 2018, Apr. 2020, Nov. 2020, Nov. 2021), The Hechinger Report, Forbes, Quartz, The Economist, VOX]
Who Needs a Fracking Education? The Educational Response to Low-Skill Biased Technological Change (with Ayushi Narayan `14). ILR Review, 75(1), 56-89, January 2022. [Revised version, May 2020.] [Coverage in The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Salon, Business Insider]
Early Childhood Education in the United States: What, When, Where, Who, How, and Why. Chapter 2 in Routledge Handbook of the Economics of Education, ed. Brian McCall. London and New York: Routledge, 30-72, December 2021. [NBER Working Paper 28722, April 2021.] [Coverage in VOX.]
A Century of the American Woman Voter: Sex Gaps in Political Participation, Preferences, and Partisanship Since Women's Suffrage (with Na'ama Shenhav). Journal of Economic Perspectives, 34(2), 24-48, Spring 2020. [NBER Working Paper 26709, January 2020.] [Ungated version, January 2020.] [Coverage in The Atlantic, FiveThirtyEight, AEA Research Highlights Podcast]
Distributing the Green (Cards): Permanent Residency and Personal Income Taxes After the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (with Ethan Lewis). Journal of Public Economics, 172, 135-150, April 2019. [NBER Working Paper 24872, revised November 2018.]
Public Investments in Child Care. In The 51%: Driving Growth Through Women's Economic Participation, eds. Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach and Ryan Nunn. Washington, D.C.: The Hamilton Project, 123-142, October 2017. [Featured in this Oct. 2019 Hamilton Project Strategy Paper.]
First in the Class? Age and the Education Production Function (with Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach). Education Finance and Policy, 11(3), 225-250, Summer 2016. Pre-publication version (April 2015). [Coverage in The New Yorker]
The Effectiveness of Policies that Promote Labor Force Participation of Women with Children: A Collection of National Studies (with Steven J. Haider and Helena Skyt Nielsen). Labour Economics, 36: 64-71, October 2015. IZA Discussion Paper 9297.
The Promises and Pitfalls of Universal Early Education. IZA World of Labor 2015: 116, January 2015. [Coverage in The Guardian, Brookings]
Valuing the Vote: The Redistribution of Voting Rights and State Funds Following the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (with Ebonya Washington). The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(1), 376-433, February 2014. Pre-publication version (July 2013) Online appendix [Coverage in The Atlantic, Salon, Vox]
The Impacts of Expanding Access to High-Quality Preschool Education (with Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach). Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall 2013, 127-178. Online appendix. [Coverage in Reuters]
Local Responses to Federal Grants: Evidence from the Introduction of Title I in the South (with Nora Gordon and Sarah Reber). American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 5(3), 126-159, August 2013. Pre-publication version (July 2012) Online appendix.
The K-12 Education Battle (with Sarah Reber). Chapter 3 in Legacies of the War on Poverty, eds. Martha Bailey and Sheldon Danziger, New York: Russell Sage, 66-92, July 2013. [Coverage in The Atlantic]
The Poverty Gap in School Spending Following the Introduction of Title I (with Sarah Reber). American Economic Review Papers & Proceedings, 103(3), 423-427, May 2013. Pre-publication version (January 2013)
Cracks in the Melting Pot: Immigration, School Choice, and Segregation (with Ethan Lewis). American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 4(3), 91-117, August 2012. Pre-publication version (May 2011) Online appendix
Is Being in School Better? The Impact of School on Children's BMI When Starting Age is Endogenous (with Patricia Anderson, Kristin Butcher, and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach). Journal of Health Economics, 30(5), 977-986, September 2011.
Paying for Progress: Conditional Grants and the Desegregation of Southern Schools (with Nora Gordon, Ethan Lewis, and Sarah Reber). The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 125(1), 445-482, February 2010. Pre-publication version (April 2009) Online appendix.
Maternal Labor Supply and the Introduction of Kindergartens into American Public Schools. The Journal of Human Resources, 44(1), 140-170, Winter 2009. Pre-publication version (December 2007) [Coverage in Reuters]
From Brown to Busing (with Nora Gordon, Ethan Lewis and Sarah Reber). Journal of Urban Economics, 64(2), 296-325, September 2008.
Education and the Age Profile of Literacy into Adulthood (with Damon Clark and Nora Gordon). Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22(3), 47-70, Summer 2008.
Schooling and the Armed Forces Qualifying Test: Evidence from School-Entry Laws (with Ethan Lewis). The Journal of Human Resources, 41(2), 294-318, Spring 2006. Pre-publication version (October 2005)
Works in Progress
The Intergenerational Effects of Permanent Legal Status (with Paul Cornell `24 and Ethan Lewis). NBER Working Paper 32635, June 2024.
How Good are Proxies for Legal Status? Evidence from the Legalization of Two Million Mexicans (with Ethan Lewis and Chengguo Zhang `25). NBER Working Paper 32632, June 2024.
Opening the Door: Immigrant Legalization and Family Reunification in the United States (with Ethan Lewis). [Updated version, Online appendix] Journal of Labor Economics, forthcoming October 2025.
Knowledge, Tests, and Fadeout in Educational Interventions (with Doug Staiger). NBER Working Paper 18038, May 2012.
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