Rate My Professor Paul Thompson

Thompson's research specializations include public economics, economics of education, and urban economics. Key areas of inquiry encompass the impacts of four-day school weeks on student achievement, educational engagement, and district expenditures; fiscal stress in school districts and local governments; teacher value-added performance measures; and returns to public investments in education infrastructure. Prominent publications feature 'Is four less than five? Effects of four-day school weeks on student achievement in Oregon' (Journal of Public Economics, 2021), 'Only a matter of time? The role of time in school on four-day school week achievement impacts' (Economics of Education Review, 2022), 'Does a day lost equal dollars saved? The effects of four-day school weeks on school district expenditures' (National Tax Journal, 2021), 'An evaluation of empirical Bayes’s estimation of value-added teacher performance measures' (Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 2015), 'Impacts of new school facility construction: An analysis of a state-financed capital subsidy program in Ohio' (Economics of Education Review, 2017), and 'Excellence for All? University Honors Programs and Human Capital Formation' (Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 2024). His scholarship has appeared in leading outlets such as Regional Science and Urban Economics, Journal of Urban Economics, Education Finance and Policy, and Public Choice. Thompson has earned distinction as a Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Young Scholar and IZA Research Fellow (since December 2023).