Kerwin Charles, Ph.D.

Kerwin Charles is the Steans Family Professor and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Kerwin Charles is the Steans Family Professor in the Harris School and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research focuses on a range of subjects in the broad area of empirical labor economics. His work has examined the effect of abortion legalization on outcomes for children born around the time of legalization; the effect of racial composition of neighborhoods on the social connections people make; causes for the dramatic convergence in completed schooling between recent generations of American men and women; the effect of retirement on subjective well being; the propagation of wealth across generations within a family; and many dimensions of the effect of health shocks, including the effect on family stability and labor supply. In ongoing work, he is studying how beliefs, opinions, and expectations determine outcomes in the labor market and elsewhere.