Senior Economist; Professor of Policy Analysis, RAND School of Public Policy
She/Her
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Lynn Karoly (she/her) is a senior economist at RAND and a professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy. Her research has examined human capital investments, social welfare policy, child and family well-being, and labor markets. Much of her recent child policy research has focused on early childhood care and education (ECCE) programs with studies of their use and quality, publicly subsidized programs such as Head Start, compensation and professional development for the ECCE workforce, quality rating and improvement systems, ECCE cost and financing, and birth through five (B–5) systems. In other work, she led an evaluation of recent reforms to CalWORKs, California's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Related research includes an assessment of causal impacts of the major U.S. means-tested cash, in-kind, and human capital investment programs and a comprehensive synthesis of the 1990s welfare reforms.
Karoly has applied benefit-cost analysis and related economic evaluation tools to social programs including early childhood interventions and youth development programs. Other studies have focused on the future of the workforce and workplace in the United States, state-level immigration policies, self-employment behavior, and labor markets in the Middle East. Karoly served as director of RAND's Office of Research Quality Assurance and director of RAND Labor and Population. Her professional service includes serving as the 2017 president of the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis and editorial roles for the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis and The Journal of Human Resources. Karoly received her Ph.D. in economics from Yale University.
Ph.D. and M.A. in economics, Yale University; B.A. in economics and mathematics, Claremont McKenna College
