Christine Mulhern

Christine Mulhern is an Economist at RAND, manager  of RAND's portfolio of emploment research, and professor at the RAND School of Public Policy.  

Her research focuses on labor, public economics, and the economics of education. She studies how students and workers navigate education and labor market pathways, including how social networks, school resources, job characteristics and technology influence these choices. She has studied the effects of school counselors, siblings, and personalized guidance technology on educational attainment and inequality in the use of educational resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is also working on research related to children's health and the long-term impacts of education on health.

 Her research has been published in the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Public Economics and several other journals. Her work has also been featured in media outlets including the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, and funded by the National Institutes of Health, Institute of Education Sciences, Arnold Ventures, and several other foundations. Mulhern received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2020. She lives in the Bay Area and works in RAND's Santa Monica office. 

Email: cmulhern@rand.org