Prof. Timothy N. Bond

Prof. Timothy N. Bond (Ph.D., Boston University) is the Director of Undergraduate Programs for the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University. His research focuses on labor economics and the economics of education.



"When I starting my studies to become an economist, I wish someone had told me _____." How would you fill in that blank?

Take more math and stats! Actually, people told me that I just didn’t believe them. Also graduate school is very different from undergraduate – it’s a full time job (or more). Understanding that, and developing the work ethic necessary to be successful in such a position was the biggest challenge I faced early on in graduate school.

I volunteer at a charter school in a poor neighborhood in Memphis. What are some interesting research questions one might pursue if data/statistics were available? Some questions are obvious ones, like improvement on test scores, but maybe there are ones that are not so obvious?

Having access to a school that would let you run interventions would be a real asset. Things like studying the impact of different instructional methods, tracking (allowing for honors classes or not), or maybe even attendance policies. I have been critical of methods that evaluate school policies using only test scores, so some way to link the students to long-run outcomes would lead to a wealth of exciting questions you could answer (but an enormous undertaking, of course). Maybe college placements would be feasible?