ARLINGTON, VA – The Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) is proud to name Texas A&M University economics professor Jennifer Doleac a Distinguished Fellow as part of its Fellowship for the Study of Liberalism and a Free Society, in recognition of her work relating to criminal justice reform.
Doleac and other members of the 2022-2023 cohort join the ranks of past Distinguished Fellows, including Nobel Prize winner Vernon Smith and MacArthur genius Danielle Allen.
“Economists like myself bring a useful perspective to the criminal justice policy conversation,” Doleac said. “First, we are obsessed with doing rigorous empirical work that distinguishes correlation from causation. That is crucial for understanding whether policies work and how to make them better. Second, we are trained to think about how people respond to incentives and how to construct better incentives that lead people to do what we want them to do — for instance, not commit crime. There is a broad consensus across party lines that our criminal justice system is not working as fairly or effectively as it could, so there is lots of work to do, and I find it super-rewarding to work on this important social problem.”
The IHS fellowship explores the ongoing relevance of liberal principles within the academy and beyond. IHS Distinguished Fellows share an exemplary record of advancing these principles through their research and public engagement.
As an associate professor of economics at Texas A&M, Doleac studies the economics of crime and discrimination. She is president of Doleac Initiatives, a non-profit which encompasses several ventures related to criminal justice research and policy, including the Justice Tech Lab and the Criminal Justice Expert Panel. She organizes the Texas Economics of Crime Workshop (TxECW) and the Virtual Crime Economics (ViCE) seminar and also hosts Probable Causation, a podcast about law, economics and crime.
Rooted in the classical liberal tradition, IHS is a non-profit organization that supports the achievement of a freer and more humane society by connecting and supporting graduate students, scholars and intellectuals who are driving progress in critical conversations shaping the 21st century. For additional information and details on our program and funding opportunities, visit TheIHS.org.
This story was originally published here.