Joni Hersch
Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair Professor of Law and Economics; Co-Director, Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics | Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN, UNITED STATES
Expert in employment discrimination, focusing particularly on women, minorities and immigrants.
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Biography
Joni Hersch is an economist who works in the areas of employment discrimination and empirical law and economics. She has published numerous articles in leading peer-reviewed journals and law reviews.
Hersch’s research focuses on the influence of gender, race, national origin, skin color, and family background on labor market outcomes, higher education and inequality. Her research has received international media attention and has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Vox, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic and the L.A. Times.
Hersch joined Vanderbilt Law School as a professor of law and economics in 2006, with secondary appointments in the Department of Economics and the Owen Graduate School of Management. That same year, she and W. Kip Viscusi co-founded Vanderbilt’s Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics. She is a research fellow with IZA Institute for Labor Economics and was co-editor of the peer-reviewed IZA Journal of Labor Economics from summer 2015 through summer 2018. She also serves as associate editor of the Review of Economics of the Household. She is the author of Sex Discrimination in the Labor Market (Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics, 2006) and co-editor of Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the Twenty-First Century (University of Chicago, 2004).
Before joining Vanderbilt’s faculty, Hersch was an adjunct law professor at Harvard Law School. She was a professor of economics at the University of Wyoming from 1989 to 1999 and has been a visiting professor of economics at Northwestern, Caltech, Duke, and Harvard.
Areas of Expertise (7)
Employment Law
Employment & Labour Law
Sex Discrimination
Labor Economics
Employment Discrimination
Discrimination in the Labor Markets
Employment and Labor Law
Education (2)
Northwestern University: Ph.D., Economics 1981
University of South Florida: B.A., Mathematics 1977
Affiliations (6)
- American Economics Association
- American Law and Economics Association
- The Status of Women in the Economics Profession
- Society of Economics of the Household
- Society of Labor Economists
- Southern Economic Association.
Links (2)
Selected Media Appearances (9)
The impending ripple effect of the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ban
The Hill online
2023-06-30
The Supreme Court just upended decades of established precedent by eliminating any direct consideration of race in admissions. Used only by elite colleges and universities, affirmative action ensures that all students benefit from a diverse student body. This decision has immediate implications for universities, which must now engage in ever-more costly recruiting efforts.
What the SCOTUS ruling on affirmative action could mean for your HR team and talent pipeline
Fortune online
2023-06-29
Though the decision is one that most saw coming, it still stunned many. “I'm still shocked—that's my initial reaction,” Joni Hersch, a professor of law and economics at Vanderbilt University, told Fortune on a call shortly after the news broke. “I'm still reeling. I'm still shaking.” Hersch, who authored a research paper titled Affirmative Action and the Leadership Pipeline, says the decision will inherently shrink the talent pipeline for people from underrepresented backgrounds. As an economist, she and her fellow researchers in education have analyzed representation data following previous affirmative action court cases at the state level.
Pay attention to potential charter school expansion in Tennessee | Opinion
Tennessean online
2023-05-08
Threatened with a takeover by a charter school network, teachers and parents of students at Abbott Elementary School successfully rally in opposition. It is a heartwarming conclusion to an ongoing plot line in a popular sitcom that highlights the realities of an underfunded public school in Philadelphia and its contrast to a well-resourced charter school down the street. Busy parents seemed unconcerned about a charter school takeover until they were tricked into attending an event. At the event, parents came to realize that their children could be kicked out of the charter school, would be admitted by lottery, and current teachers could be fired.
Double Majors in College: What to Know
U.S. News & World Report online
2023-02-02
A 2016 paper by Alison Del Rossi of St. Lawrence University in New York and Joni Hersch of the Vanderbilt University Law School in Tennessee also concluded that a combination of business and STEM provides the greatest economic benefit. "Double majoring is one educational strategy that may combine advantages of technical training with liberal arts education, allowing access to higher paying occupations as well as cultivating critical thinking and communication skills," the researchers wrote. According to Del Rossi and Hersch, about 20% of college students graduate with a double major.
Tackling sexual harassment could bring sizeable economic dividends
The Economist online
2022-12-08
Gender-based harassment also acts as a tax on the rest of the population. One way to pin an economic value on this is to estimate how much of a pay cut workers are ready to accept to avoid the risk of harassment. In their paper Ms Rickne and Mr Folke ran experiments with hypothetical job offers in Sweden. They find that, on average, the gender most at risk—most often women—is willing to give up 17% of their salaries to avoid harassment. In another study Joni Hersch, of Vanderbilt University, calculates that the collective sacrifice in earnings of American women per filed case of sexual harassment in any given year is $9.3m.
How to keep leadership white: Ban affirmative action
The Hill online
2022-10-05
The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to ban any consideration of race in college admissions. It is well established that eliminating consideration of race will lead to a substantial reduction in the number of underrepresented minority students at elite colleges. But the consequences to society of less student diversity at top colleges extend far beyond the impact on individual students or universities. Banning affirmative action would have clear and devastating consequences on our country’s progress toward racial equity by exacerbating the current underrepresentation of diverse leaders and professionals.
Are Abortion Rights Just for Privileged Careerists?
Bloomberg Law online
2021-12-17
“I think it’s brilliant but insane,” says Joni Hersch, co-director of Vanderbilt Law School’s Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics, about how pro-lifers have latched onto women’s careers as the focus of the abortion debate. Though the abortion demographics have changed over the years , “abortion still largely affects lower income and minority women,” Hersch adds. According to the most recent findings by Guttmacher Institute based on 2014 statistics, 75% of abortion patients were poor or low income, and Black and Hispanic women made up 53% of abortion patients.
Latinos with darker skin say they face discrimination and trouble getting ahead — another impact of colorism
MarketWatch online
2021-11-11
One 2018 study by Vanderbilt University economist Joni Hersch, for example, found that documented immigrants with darker skin get paid as much as 25% less than their lighter-skinned counterparts — a growing disparity. Hersch, who controlled for factors such as educational attainment, work experience and proficiency in English, had found a smaller wage penalty when she interviewed the same immigrants four years earlier.
Why Big Law Has a Stake in the Harvard Admissions Case
Bloomberg Law online
2021-06-16
Economist Joni Hersch, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School (ranked #16 in U.S. News & World Report), relays that Scalia anecdote in her upcoming Tulane Law Review article, arguing that affirmative action is critical to achieving diversity in the professions and society at large. Her thesis is that elite undergraduate schools feed elite professional schools, and that considering race in admission to undergraduate institutions is vital to sustaining a diverse pipeline.
Selected Articles (3)
Efficient Deterrence of Workplace Sexual Harassment
University of Chicago Legal Forum, ForthcomingJoni Hersch
2019 "Although sexual harassment imposes costs on both victims and organizations, it is also costly for organizations to reduce sexual harassment. Legislation, education, training, and litigation have all been unsuccessful in eradicating workplace sexual harassment."
The Gendered Burdens of Conviction and Collateral Consequences on Employment
Journal of Legislation,Joni Hersch, Erin E Meyers
2019-04-09
2019 "Ex-offenders are subject to a wide range of employment restrictions that limit the ability of individuals with a criminal background to earn a living. This Article argues that women involved in the criminal justice system likely suffer a greater income-related burden from criminal conviction than do men."
Division of Marital Assets in High Asset Divorces
Vanderbilt Law Research PaperJoni Hersch, Jennifer Bennett Shinall
2019 "Upon divorce, marital assets in most states are divided equitably, often with the underlying legal purpose of equalizing outcomes. To examine whether decision makers value economic considerations, such as opportunity cost, specialization, and bargaining power, we asked subjects to divide marital assets equitably between a breadwinning husband and non-breadwinning wife in a wealthy household."
