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About Gema
Gema Zamarro is a Professor and 21st Century Endowed Chair in Teacher Quality in the Department of Education Reform, College of Education and Health Professions, at the University of Arkansas. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from CEMFI and UNED in Madrid, Spain, in 2006, with a dissertation on heterogeneity in returns to schooling, wages, and sequential schooling decisions. Prior to that, she received an M.S. in Economics and Finance from CEMFI in 2002 and a B.A. in Economics from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in 2000, where she was awarded the prize for the best student in economics that year. Her career includes serving as Assistant Professor in the Department of Econometrics and Operations Research at Tilburg University from 2005 to 2007; Associate Economist, Economist, and Professor of Economics at the Pardee RAND Graduate School of Public Policy at RAND Corporation from 2007 to 2013; Senior Economist at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research from 2013 to 2014; and Associate Professor and tenured faculty at the University of Arkansas from 2014 to 2019, advancing to full Professor in 2019. She currently also holds adjunct appointments as Senior Economist at USC Dornsife CESR and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Arkansas Walton College of Business. Additionally, she directs Charassein: the Character Assessment Initiative and served as Director of Graduate Studies and Interim Vice-Head in her department.
Zamarro's research applies econometrics to education, labor, and health economics, addressing policy-relevant questions such as heterogeneity in returns to education, teacher quality and student performance, school closing effects, value-added teacher evaluation methods, dual-language immersion programs, teacher labor markets, pensions, socio-emotional skills measurement, STEM gender gaps, and COVID-19 impacts on gender and education. Key publications include 'Teachers’ Willingness to Pay for Retirement Benefits: A National Stated Preferences Experiment' (Economics of Education Review, 2023, with Dillon Fuchsman and Josh B. McGee); 'Teacher-to-Classroom Assignment and Student Achievement' (Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 2022, with Brian S. Graham et al.); 'Testing, Teacher Turnover and the Distribution of Teachers Across Grades and Schools' (Education Finance and Policy, 2022, with Dillon Fuchsman and Tim Sass); 'Gender Differences in Couples’ Division of Childcare, Work and Mental Health During COVID-19' (Review of Economics of the Household, 2021, with Maria Jose Prados); and 'When Students Don’t Care: Reexamining International Differences in Achievement and Non-Cognitive Skills' (Journal of Human Capital, 2019, with Collin Hitt and Ildefonso Mendez). Her work has informed policy at state, national, and international levels and appeared in media. Honors include election to the Association for Education Finance and Policy Board of Directors (2024), placements in the Education Policy Collaborative Outstanding Policy Product Award (2022), Significant Research Awards (2022, 2016), Edu-Scholar Influence Rankings (multiple years), and recognition among the top 2 percent of worldwide researchers (2025). She has served on editorial boards for AERA Open and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.