Matthew Kraft

Associate Professor of Education and Economics
Matthew Kraft

Matthew Kraft joined Brown University in 2013 and the PSTC in 2015. His research and teaching interests include the economics of education, education policy analysis, and applied quantitative methods for causal inference. Kraft studies human capital policies in education with a focus on teacher effectiveness and organizational change in K-12 urban public schools. He has published on topics such as teacher coaching, teacher layoffs, teacher-parent communication, teacher professional growth, school working conditions, and extended learning time.  

In 2015, Kraft was named a William T. Grant Scholar for his 5-year research project, Teacher Effects on Students’ Non-Cognitive Competencies: A Study of Impacts, Instruction, and Improvement. The American Educational Research Association (AERA) selected his article with co-author John Papay on the relationship between professional school environments and teacher development for the 2014 Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award. 

Selected Publications

Papay, J.P. & Kraft, M.A. (2o15). Productivity returns to experience in the teacher labor market: Methodological challenges and new evidence on long-term career improvement. Journal of Public Economics, 130: 105-119.

Kraft, M.A. & Papay, J.P. (2014). Do supportive professional environments promote teacher development? Explaining heterogeneity in returns to teaching experience. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.36(4), 476-500.

Kraft, M.A. & Dougherty, S.M. (2013). The effect of teacher-family communication on student engagement: Evidence from a randomized field experiment. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 6(3), 199-222.

Scholarly Interests

Economics of education, Education policy analysis, School organizational capacity, Teacher effectiveness and evaluation, Teacher-parent communication

Affiliated Departments

Department of Education