Paco Martorell

Paco Martorell is an Assistant Professor at the School of Education, University of California, Davis, where he has been faculty since 2014. He maintains an adjunct appointment as an Economist at the RAND Corporation, continuing a relationship that began in 2005. Previously, he served as a Professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School (2006-2014) and Research Scholar at the University of Texas at Dallas Center for Research on Education Policy (2012-present).

Education includes:

• PhD in Economics, University of California, Berkeley (2005)
• BA in Economics and Mathematics, Carleton College (1999)

Martorell's research spans higher education and K-12 policy with emphasis on:

• Developmental education reforms and college placement systems
• Grade retention impacts and student promotion policies
• Economic analysis of for-profit colleges and community college subsidies
• School infrastructure investments and resource allocation
• Military service consequences on education and economics
• Healthcare economics including dementia cost studies

His work employs quasi-experimental designs and field experiments to evaluate policy effectiveness.

Research publications predominantly focus on education policy evaluation and health economics, with recurring themes of equity in educational access, economic analysis of interventions, and longitudinal impacts of policy decisions. Quantitative methods form the core of his analytical approach.

Awards and honors include:

• Huddleson Award for Outstanding Teaching (2009)
• RAND President's Award (2008)
• Public Policy Research Award from UC Berkeley (2005)

Grant leadership includes multiple Institute of Education Sciences (IES) projects as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator, examining:

• School facility spending impacts (R305A140363)
• Developmental education interventions (R305H130026)
• Long-term effects of grade retention (R305E120006)
• Community college subsidy impacts (R305A100369)

Additional funding sources include Spencer Foundation, NICHD, and Smith Richardson Foundation.

He teaches doctoral courses in education policy and previously taught econometrics at Pardee RAND Graduate School (2006-2013).