This week, I’m thrilled to have Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach as my guest. Diane is the Margaret Walker Alexander Professor in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University and a leading voice in the economics of poverty, education, and public policy. Her research focuses on how major programs like SNAP, Medicaid, and early childhood education impact children’s long-term outcomes. Diane has published in top-tier journals, testified before Congress, and served in key leadership roles, including as director of the Hamilton Project at Brookings and as director of Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research.

Diane is also part of my ongoing series exploring economists with connections to Princeton’s Industrial Relations Section. As a former student of the late Alan Krueger, Diane brings a unique perspective to the show, and it was a privilege to hear about her journey—from her work at the Council of Economic Advisers to her impactful research and academic career.

Thank you, Diane, for joining me, and thank you for listening! I hope you enjoy the conversation.

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Welcome to this weeks episode of the Mixtape with Scott! This is a podcast about the personal stories of living economists and an oral history of the last 50 years, give or take. And today’s guest is part of a larger series about the students of the key founders of the credibility revolution. Today’s guest was Alan Krueger’s student at Princeton and her name is Marie Connolly, a labor economist and professor at Université du Québec à Montréal.

Marie Connolly earned her Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University in 2007, where she worked under the mentorship of Alan B. Krueger. I first corresponded with Marie right after she published an article estimating intertemporal labor supply elasticities in Journal of Labor Economics in 2008. I was working on a similar paper as hers, in that I was using quasi-experimental changes in weather to estimate labor supply in sex work, but hers was interesting because she framed the project in relation to macroeconomic models that required much larger elasticities than what she and others found using quasi-experimental methods. Connolly’s work was emblematic of the “credibility revolution” in economics in that sense and not just through academic lineage at Princeton, Krueger and the Industrial Relations Section.

Throughout her career, Connolly has explored two fascinating domains: the economics of music and the intersection of family dynamics and labor markets. Her work on “Rockonomics,” often coauthored with Krueger, investigates the economics of popular music, delving into topics like concert pricing and the secondary ticket market. Equally compelling is her focus on family-related issues, such as child penalties and intergenerational income mobility. Her recent research on child penalties in Canada and the cognitive and non-cognitive effects of class size has echoes of her former advisor’s own work on class size. Connolly’s dual focus on music and family economics demonstrates her versatility and intellectual curiosity, making her a unique voice in labor economics.

Thank you again for your support of the podcast! I hope you find this interview as interesting as I did.

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Welcome to the last podcast interview of 2024! This is the fourth season, 10th episode, which I guess puts us between 110-120 interviews so far. This week’s interview with an economist, learning more about their personal story, is Ted Joyce.

Ted is a Professor of Economics at Baruch College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY), and a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Health Economics program. He’s renowned for his contributions to demography and reproductive health policy and his work has appeared in top journals such as the Journal of Political Economy, New England Journal of Medicine, and Review of Economics and Statistics.

Ted has been a role model for me ever since I graduated in 2007, graciously corresponding with me, meeting with me at conferences, and talking to me about research and navigating the ropes. He was Mike Grossman’s student at CUNY, who I interviewed before and who is himself a very prominent health economist who was also one of Gary Becker’s first students. As my advisor, David Mustard, was also a Becker student, that makes me and Ted cousins. So it was nice having a family reunion for this interview.

Happy new year everyone. May you all be at ease, be at peace, be safe and be happy. 2025 here we come!

Scott's Mixtape Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.