Rate My Professor Daniel Fetter

Daniel K. Fetter is an Associate Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. He earned his BA from Wesleyan University, MSc from the London School of Economics, and PhD from Harvard University. Before joining Dartmouth in 2023, he served as an Assistant Professor of Economics at Wellesley College. Fetter is a Research Associate in the Development of the American Economy program at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Fetter's research focuses on the intersection of economic history and public policy, particularly government interventions in U.S. housing markets and the introduction of social insurance programs such as Social Security during the mid-20th century. His studies explore the effects of mortgage subsidies under the Mid-Century GI Bills on home ownership, wartime rent control and its role in the rapid wartime increase in home ownership during the 1940s, local government responses to old-age support under the New Deal, and the labor supply impacts of the Old Age Assistance Program. Key publications include "How Do Mortgage Subsidies Affect Home Ownership? Evidence from the Mid-Century GI Bills," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (2013); "The Home Front: Rent Control and the Rapid Wartime Increase in Home Ownership," The Journal of Economic History (2016); "Local Government and Old-Age Support in the New Deal," Explorations in Economic History (2017); "Government Old-Age Support and Labor Supply: Evidence from the Old Age Assistance Program" (2018); and a chapter titled "Housing in American Economic History" (2018). Fetter has discussed the effects of Social Security on recipients' children in the Big Green Economics podcast episode 9 (2024). He contributes to the field through service on the Economic History Association's Engerman-Goldin Prize committee.