Rate My Professor Paul Thompson

Paul Thompson is an Associate Professor and Associate Director of Economics in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University. He earned a B.A. in Economics from the College of Wooster in Ohio and a Ph.D. in Economics from Michigan State University, where he held an Institute of Education Sciences pre-doctoral fellowship in Economics of Education. Prior to his promotion to associate professor, Thompson served as an Assistant Professor of Economics at Oregon State University. His career focuses on advancing empirical research in economics, with contributions to departmental leadership including serving as Co-Chair of the Economics Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and participation in Phi Beta Kappa chapter leadership.

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).