Christine Mulhern is an associate policy researcher at the RAND Corporation who focuses on the economics of education and labor economics. Her research studies how students and workers navigate education and career pathways, including whether and where to enroll in postsecondary education and how social networks, school resources, and technology influence these choices. She has studied the effects of high school counselors on educational attainment, siblings' influence on college choices, and the impacts of personalized guidance technology provided by Naviance. More recently, she has examined inequality in the use of online resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, how schools have adapted to the pandemic. She also has work examining the impact of online learning technologies on course performance in higher education. Mulhern received her Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University.
Selected Publications
Christine Mulhern, "Changing College Choices with Personalized Admissions Information at Scale: Evidence on Naviance," Journal of Labor Economics, 39(1), 2021
Andrew Bacher-Hicks, Joshua Goodman, and Christine Mulhern, "Inequality in HouseholdvAdaptation to Schooling Shocks: Covid-Induced Online Learning Engagement in Real Time," Journal of Public Economics, 193, 2021
Adam Altmejd, Andres Barrios-Fernandez, Marin Drlje, Joshua Goodman, Michael Hurwitz, Dejan Kovac, Christine Mulhern, Christopher Neilson and Jonathan Smith, "O Brother, Where Start Thou? Sibling Spillovers in College and Major Choice in Four Countries," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2021 (forthcoming)