Joni Hersch

Biography

Professor Hersch joined Vanderbilt Law School as a professor of law and economics in 2006, with secondary appointments in the Department of Economics and the Owen Graduate School of Management. That same year, she and W. Kip Viscusi co-founded Vanderbilt’s Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics. 

Awards & Accomplishments

She is a research fellow with IZA Institute for Labor Economics and was co-editor of the peer-reviewed IZA Journal of Labor Economicsfrom summer 2015 through summer 2018. She also serves as associate editor of the Review of Economics of the Household. 

Publications

She has published numerous articles in leading peer-reviewed journals and law reviews. She is the author of Sex Discrimination in the Labor Market (Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics, 2006) and co-editor of Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the Twenty-First Century (University of Chicago, 2004).

Teaching

Before joining Vanderbilt’s faculty, Professor Hersch was an adjunct law professor at Harvard Law School. She was a professor of economics at the University of Wyoming from 1989 to 1999 and has been a visiting professor of economics at Northwestern, Caltech, Duke, and Harvard.

Research Interests

Professor Hersch’s research focuses on the influence of gender, race, national origin, skin color, and family background on labor market outcomes, higher education and inequality. Her research has received international media attention and has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Vox, The Boston Globe, The Atlanticand the L.A. Times.

Education

Ph.D., Economics, Northwestern University, 1981

B.A., Mathematics, University of South Florida, 1977