Triangle Economics of Education Workshop 2025

The Triangle Economics of Education Workshop (TEEW) will bring together scholars to present and discuss empirical research on the economics of education.

This year’s keynote speaker is Celeste Carruthers, the William F. Fox Distinguished Professor of Labor Economics in the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee with a joint appointment in the Department of Economics and the Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research. Her research centers on education policy with crossovers into public economics, labor economics, and economic history. Recent and ongoing projects examine the effect of financial aid on college choices, career and technical education, and the consequences of segregated schools in the early 20th-century United States. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in public expenditure analysis, causal inference, and econometrics.

Carruthers is the Editor-in-Chief of Economics of Education Review, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Baker Expert at the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy, and a research fellow with the Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Her talk is entitled “Education & Workforce Alignment: A Conversation Between Policy and Research.” During this talk, Carruthers will review the evolution of policy goals around postsecondary education and training, from moonshot attainment targets to a renewed emphasis on “credentials of value.” Both phases have been fueled by a demand for workforce alignment and informed by research on the returns to postsecondary education, technical education, and specific credentials. Looking ahead, there are pressing issues where researchers can contribute to the design and evaluation of policies that build and adapt the education-workforce pipeline.

This event, which is co-sponsored by the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy and the Department of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will be held in person only.