Derek Neal

Derek Neal is a professor in the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics and the Committee on Education at UChicago. Much of Prof. Neal’s recent research focuses on the design of incentive and accountability systems for educators. In 2018, he published Information, Incentives, and Education Policy, which employs standard tools from information economics to examine a range of education reform agendas, from assessment-based accountability and centralized school assignments to charter schools and voucher systems.

Earlier in his career, Prof. Neal's research focused on the causes and consequences of measured skill gaps between blacks and whites in the United States. His current work explores how different aspects of criminal justice policy impact black-white inequality in the U.S. He is a fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, and former editor at the Journal of Human Resources, the Journal of Labor Economics and the Journal of Political Economy.