Rate My Professor Ed Gerrish

Ed Gerrish is an Associate Professor of Public Administration at the University of South Dakota, where he also directs the Government Research Bureau. His research focuses on government performance systems, particularly optimizing performance while avoiding unintended behaviors. Gerrish earned his Ph.D. in Public Affairs from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University in 2015, with a dissertation titled "The Evolution of Performance Management in Public Organizations." He previously received his MPA from the same institution in 2010 and a BA with honors in Political Science and Communication Studies from the University of South Dakota in 2005.

Prior to his academic career, Gerrish worked in Washington, D.C., analyzing regulatory costs and benefits for federal agencies at Policy Navigation Group, contributing to tax policy at the Tax Foundation, and supporting policy development at Freedman Consulting. He joined USD as an Assistant Professor in 2015 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2021. Gerrish's scholarship emphasizes public sector performance, performance management, state and local finance, and meta-analysis. His publications appear in premier outlets like Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Select works include "The Impact of Performance Management on Performance in Public Organizations: A Meta-Analysis" (2016), "Does Benchmarking Encourage Improvement or Convergence? Evaluating North Carolina’s Fiscal Analysis Tool" (2017, co-authored with Thomas L. Spreen), "The Effect of the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998 on Rewarded and Unrewarded Performance Goals" (2017), and "Can Employee Training Influence Local Fiscal Outcomes?" (2020, co-authored with Thomas L. Spreen and Whitney Afonso). He has earned the Kenneth J. and Diane Jones Meier Political Science Faculty Research Award (2016) and funded research from the Chiesman Center for Democracy and Pew Charitable Trusts. Gerrish teaches research methods, public budgeting, and finance, and presents at major conferences such as APPAM and PMRC.