Featured Researcher: Kitt Carpenter

07/01/2019
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Carpenter’s research focuses on the effects of public policy on health behaviors. He has published widely on the subject of alcohol consumption, examining the impacts of underage drunk driving laws, minimum drinking ages, and Sunday sales restrictions. He has studied the consequences of an array of public policies targeting health behaviors such as smoking, bicycle helmet use, driver cell phone use, vaccination, and cancer screening. His research also examines economic disparities by sexual orientation, with recent work providing evidence regarding the impact of legal same-sex marriage.

Currently a co-editor of the Journal of Health Economics, Carpenter also serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Health Economics and the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. He is vice president of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Health Economists, and the co-chair of American Economic Association’s new Committee on the Status of LGBTQ+ Individuals in the Economics Profession.

Carpenter earned a B.A. in economics, math, and public service from Albion College and received a Harry S. Truman Graduate Fellowship for Public Service. After earning a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan. He was a faculty member at the University of California at Irvine before joining the faculty at Vanderbilt in 2013.

Outside of work, Carpenter enjoys tennis, theater, and traveling with his husband.