Sean P. Corcoran is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Education at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. He is a research affiliate of the Research Alliance for New York City Schools, the Tennessee Education Research Alliance (TERA), and Nashville PEER. Previously, he was an Associate Professor of Economics and Education Policy at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development (2005-2019). Prior to that, he was Assistant Professor of Economics at California State University, Sacramento (2003-2005) and a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation (2005-2006). In 2012-13 he was a visitor at the Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA) at Stanford University. Dr. Corcoran earned his Ph.D in economics from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Dr. Corcoran’s research interests are in the Economics of Education, State and Local Public Finance, and Applied Microeconomics. His published papers have examined long-run trends in teacher quality, the impact of income inequality and school finance reform on the level and equity of education funding in the United States, the properties of “value-added” measures of teacher effectiveness, and the school choices of New York City public school students.

Dr. Corcoran is an Associate Editor of the journal Education Finance & Policy, serves on the editorial boards of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, the American Educational Research Journal, and Sociology of Education, and is a former member of the board of directors of the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) and the research committee for the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). 

Last updated: June 9, 2023