Joni Hersch

Joni Hersch serves as Professor of Law and Economics at Vanderbilt Law School since 2006, holding secondary appointments in the Department of Economics and Owen Graduate School of Management. She co-founded Vanderbilt's Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics with W. Kip Viscusi in 2006 and maintains active research and editorial roles.

Her educational credentials include:

• Ph.D. in Economics, Northwestern University (1981)
• B.A. in Mathematics, University of South Florida (1977)

Professor Hersch's research investigates how gender, race, national origin, skin color, and family background influence labor market outcomes, higher education access, and economic inequality through empirical law and economics frameworks. Her work bridges legal analysis with socioeconomic data, receiving extensive coverage in major outlets like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post due to its policy relevance.

She serves as a research fellow at the IZA Institute for Labor Economics and held editorial positions including co-editor of the IZA Journal of Labor Economics (2015-2018) and associate editor of the Review of Economics of the Household. Prior academic appointments include Professor of Economics at the University of Wyoming (1989-1999), adjunct law professor at Harvard Law School, and visiting positions at Northwestern, Caltech, Duke, and Harvard.

Her scholarly output features the monograph Sex Discrimination in the Labor Market (2006) and co-edited volume Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the Twenty-First Century (2004), alongside numerous journal publications. While specific advising relationships aren't detailed, her research program demonstrates sustained mentorship through collaborative scholarship and program development.