Jing Liu

Research Interests

student absenteeism; exclusionary discipline; educator’s labor market and effectiveness; school reform; health and education; higher education; causal inference; text as data.

Bio

Jing Liu is an Assistant Professor in Education Policy at the University of Maryland College Park. Named as a National Academy of Education Sciences/Spencer Dissertation Fellow, he earned his Ph.D. in Economics of Education from Stanford University in 2018. Before he joined UMD, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University’s Annenberg Institute. Dr. Liu's research uses rigorous quantitative evidence to evaluate and inform education policies at the national, state, and local levels, with the goal of improving learning opportunities for historically marginalized students in urban areas. His work broadly engages with critical policy issues including student absenteeism, exclusionary discipline, educator’s labor market, school reform, and higher education. Grounded in economic theory and policy analysis, he uses both quasi-experimental designs and data science methods such as computational linguistic analysis to analyze large administrative data and unstructured information. Most of his current projects focus on understanding the development of student engagement, behavior, and social emotional skills, how these skills and dispositions contribute to student success in the short and long run, and what the implications are for improving equal educational opportunities. His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, and Economics of Education Review.

Personal website: www.jingliu.info

Honors & Awards

2019-2020 Emerging Education Policy Scholar by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the American Enterprise Institute
2017-2018 National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship
2017-2018 Shultz Graduate Student Fellowship in Economic Policy, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
2017-2018 Dissertation Support Grant, Stanford Graduate School of Education
2017-2018 Dissertation Grant, Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute
2017-2018 Technology for Equity in Learning Opportunities Award, Stanford Graduate School of Education
2015-2016 The Karr Family Fellowship, Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis
2013-2014 The I. James and Viola Quillen Fellowship, Stanford Graduate School of Education
2011 Best Paper Award, Deloitte Tax Championship, China
2011 Outstanding Graduate, Department of Public Finance, Peking University
2011 Excellent Graduate Thesis, Department of Public Finance, Peking University

Publications

Liu, J., Loeb, S., Shi, Y. (Forthcoming), “More Than Shortages: The Unequal Distribution of Substitute Teaching”. Education Finance and Policy.

Liu, J. & Loeb, S. (Forthcoming), “Engaging Teachers: Measuring Teacher’s Impact on Student Attendance in Secondary School”. Journal of Human Resources.

Sun, M., Liu, J., Zhu, JM., LeClair, Z. (2019), “Using a Text-as-Data Approach to Understand Reform Processes: A Deep Exploration of School Improvement Strategies”. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 41(4), 510-536.

Penner, E., Rochmes, J., Liu, J., Solanki, S., Loeb, S. (2019), “Differing View of Equity: How Prospective Educators Perceive Their Role in Closing Achievement Gaps”. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of Social Sciences, 5(3), 103-127.

Bo, S., Liu, J., Shiu, J., Song, Y., Zhou, S. (2019), “Admission Mechanisms and Mismatches between Colleges and Students: Evidence from A Large Administrative Dataset from China”. Economics of Education Review, 68, 27-37.

Whitney, C. R. & Liu, J. (2017), “What We’re Missing: A Descriptive Analysis of Part-Day Absenteeism in Secondary School”, AERA Open, 3(2).

Bettinger, E., Liu, J., Loeb, S. (2016), “Connections Matter: How Interactive Peers Affect Students in Online College Courses”, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (Big Data Special Section), 35(4), 932-954.

Liu, J. & Yuan, C., (2012), “Did Value-Added Tax Reform Change Enterprise’s Employment? Evidence from the Value-Added Tax Reform in Northeastern China”, Economic Science (in Chinese), 1, 103-114.

Courses

TLPL 765: Quantitative Applications for Education Policy Analysis