Gema Zamarro (Ph.D. CEMFI, Madrid (Spain), 2005) is an economist at the RAND Corporation and Professor of Econometrics at the Pardee RAND Graduate School of Public Policy. Prior to joining RAND, Zamarro was an assistant professor in the Department of Econometrics at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and a junior research fellow at NETSPAR (Network for Studies on Pensions, Aging and Retirement). Dr. Zamarro has performed research on applied econometrics in the areas of labor, health, and education. She has recently completed studies on heterogeneity in returns to education, on the relationship between teacher quality and student performance, and on the causal effect of retirement on health. Her current education research focuses on analyzing the determinants of school choice and on studying how school closing policies affect student achievement. In addition, she is researching the pathways to better health in retirement, the effects of induced entry into Social Security Disability Insurance, and the determinants and consequences of low health literacy and financial literacy.
Health and Retirement
Retirement Effects on Health in Europe (with Norma B. Coe), Journal of Health Economics (2011)
What are the health impacts of retirement? As talk of raising retirement ages in pensions...
Economics of Education
Closing schools in a shrinking district: Do students outcomes depend on which schools are closed? (with John Engberg, Brian Gill, and Ron Zimmer), Journal of Urban Economics (2012)
In the last decade, many cities around the country have needed to close schools due...
Accounting for Heterogeneous Returns in Sequential Schooling Decisions, Journal of Econometrics (2010)
This paper presents a method for estimating returns to multiple schooling levels taking into account...
Teacher Qualifications and Student Achievement in Urban Elementary Schools (with Richard John Buddin), Journal of Urban Economics (2009)
Teacher quality is a key element of student academic success, but few specific teacher characteristics...
Financial Literacy
What Explains the Gender Gap in Financial Literacy? The Role of Household Decision-Making (with Raquel Fonseca, Kathleen Mullen, and Julie Zissimopoulos), Journal of Consumer Affairs (2012)
Research has shown that financial illiteracy is widespread among women, and that many women are...
Working Papers
Family Labor Participation and Child Care Decisions: The Role of Grannies, RAND Working Paper Series (2011)
One of the most significant long term trends in the labor market in most OECD...