Joanna Venator

Joanna Venator

@joannavenator.bsky.social

Asst Prof of Economics at Boston College | Past life: UW-Madison, Brookings, Swarthmore | Studies Econ of Gender | she/her| https://joannavenator.com/

1,401 Followers 365 Following 47 Posts Joined Aug 2023
3 weeks ago
Image about conference that states: "Boston College 2nd PhD Conference in Economics - April 24, 2026 - Students from all fields and programs are invited to apply - Full drafts and extended abstracts accepted - Deadline for submission March 7, 2026 - Notification of acceptance March 21, 2026 - Instructions for submission and more information in BCEconGradConference.github.io

Calling all econ grad students #EconSky: the call for papers for Boston College's 2nd PhD Conference in Economics is now live here: bcecongradconference.github.io The conference is on April 24th and the deadline for submission is March 7th

4 0 0 1
1 month ago

New research alert!

Are smartphones changing knowledge measures on surveys?

tl;dr YES!

This is work with my awesome coauthors Olivia Valdes and Jeremy Burke--probably one of the most fun papers I've been a part of.

18 5 2 2
1 month ago
We study the causal effect of women's education on their wages, non-wage job amenities, and spillovers to children. Using a regression discontinuity at the school entry birthdate cutoff, we find that women born just before the cutoff are more likely to complete some college, and experience multi-dimensional career gains that grow over the life cycle: greater employment and earnings, as well as more professional and higher-status jobs, more socially meaningful work, and better working conditions. Children’s early-life health and prenatal inputs improve in tandem with career improvements, consistent with professional advances spurring—not hindering— infant investments. Career gains are concentrated in jobs that require exactly some college, the same schooling margin shifted by the cutoff, which indicates that increased post-secondary education is the primary channel for these effects. Together, the results show that women's college attendance generates large career returns—from both wages and amenities—that strengthen over time and produce meaningful benefits for children. Notes: This figure presents average earnings (panel A) and employment rates (panel B) for women born around the school entry cutoff. Outcomes are residualized with (recentered) year of birth fixed efects. Average outcomes (shown on the y-axis) are reported for 10 equally-sized bins of birth dates on each side of the cutofh. The sample includes women ages 16–40, born between 1977–1987, who satisfy other sample requirements. Source: Linked IRS–Census administrative earnings records. See text for details.

Increased women’s college attendance delivers wage and job-quality gains that grow over the life cycle, alongside improvements in children’s early-life health.

7 1 1 0
1 month ago
View of Boston College's Gasson Hall and Lower Campus facing toward Boston's skyline

Hey #econsky: are you a researcher who secretly prefers your side teaching gig? Or is tenure looking like a reach because you “teach too much”? Or a liberal arts prof who’d prefer a big city with a larger pool of impressive, thoughtful students? Come be a Boston College PoP! 1/x

7 5 1 0
3 months ago
Post image Post image

We should probably be placing incarcerated people in prisons closest to their homes.

Why?

Assigning individuals to prisons closer to their home reduces recidivism.

Really?

Yep. Being placed close to one's home increases social contacts that appear to reduce reoffending.

93 29 4 1
3 months ago
Post image

I am on the #EconJobMarket this year! I work on questions about women’s health, family, & labor.

In my #JMP I study how changes in abortion access affect infant and maternal health, finding that reductions in access harm health at birth.

Read the full manuscript here: lillyspringer.com

25 6 0 1
3 months ago
Post image

I'm on the #EconJobMarket! I study how policies and childhood environments shape outcomes of low-income & vulnerable kids.

In my JMP, I study the effects of allowing youth who would have aged out of foster care at 18 to stay until 21—offering support their peers not in foster care get from parents.

86 38 1 5
3 months ago

👋 I'm a health and labour economist on the #EconJobMarket!

My JMP explores a factor that often comes up when talking to people about having children - childcare costs

🗣️ “It’s frustrating to read articles asking why people aren’t having kids - have they looked at the cost of childcare?”

🧵…

18 6 1 0
4 months ago
Screenshot of working paper: The Consequences of Faculty Sexual Misconduct

📣 New NBER Working Paper out today 📣

"The Consequences of Faculty Sexual Misconduct"
Sarah Cohodes & Katherine Leu

556 197 15 34
4 months ago

👋 I'm Danielle, and I'm on the #econjobmarket this year!

Let's start with a student describing her segregated school:

"The school felt temporary. Built like a warehouse with aluminum siding . . . I had a slipshod education"

The twist? The student is white, and her school is private.

A JMP 🧵 -->

158 78 5 26
4 months ago
Post image

Folks in Boston, please share! Boston area folks in need, there is a free farmer’s market in JP with produce from Allandale Farm and Iggy’s Bread 💛

7 6 0 0
5 months ago
Preview
Community college students don’t always benefit from transferring to a 4-year college | Brookings Lois Miller examines community college transfer, finding it boosts degree completion but can reduce earnings afterward.

Haven't been on Bluesky in awhile, but popping in to say I wrote a policy piece based on my transfer paper for @brookings.edu Chalkboard! Many thanks to @econsarahreber.bsky.social, @katharinemeyer.bsky.social, & Michael Hansen for the opportunity and the editing.

www.brookings.edu/articles/com...

16 6 0 0
6 months ago

I am here for all your marching band content

387 63 10 3
6 months ago
Preview
We Are All Lisa Cook Nobody is safe from weaponized government

If you think the attack on the Fed's Lisa Cook has nothing to do with you, you're wrong — any one of us may be next paulkrugman.substack.com/p/we-are-all...

2,952 1,035 70 60
6 months ago
Post image

UPDATE: Lisa Cook says she's not going anywhere and Trump's bid to fire her is baseless. www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

4,185 968 90 164
6 months ago
Preview
Trump Uses Legal Threats to Push Federal Reserve Member To Resign Trump administration's weaponization of the DOJ part of an authoritarian pattern

New, from me: A Trump official is concocting mortgage fraud claims to target opposition. It's a classic authoritarian trick.

Now they are doing it to Lisa Cook, the first Black female member of the Federal Reserve to push her to resign. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/trump-uses...

1,281 584 41 49
7 months ago

What to make of POTUS's attempt to fire the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)?

Let's run down what knowledgable people are saying...

861 315 39 50
7 months ago
Preview
U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Labor Implement Workforce Development Partnership Today, the U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Labor (DOL) announced the implementation of a workforce development partnership to create an integrated federal education and workforce system.

As we see big changes in funding and administration of WIOA (which is often the source of state funding for workforce development programs at the state level), understanding the real benefits of these programs is even more important. www.ed.gov/about/news/p...

1 0 0 0
7 months ago

Can public workforce training programs grow employment and reduce skill barriers for hiring in large, well-paying firms? Yes! See my new working paper with Nora Dillon, Lisa Kahn, and Mike Dalton:

3 0 1 0
8 months ago

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Supreme Court's liberal majority strikes down the state’s 176-year-old abortion ban.

17,462 2,996 199 345
8 months ago
Preview
American Democracy Might Not Survive a War With Iran The United States is well down the road to dictatorship. Imagine what Trump would do with a state of war.

“You would never know, as The New York Times churns out its usual policy-option thumb-suckers, that the United States is well down the road to dictatorship at home. That is the context in which a war with Iran will occur.”

3,814 1,176 135 88
9 months ago
Video thumbnail

Padilla: If this is how DHS responds to a senator with a question you can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California.

38,763 13,598 797 754
9 months ago
Video thumbnail

I'm on my way to the Senate floor to talk about the assault on my colleague, Senator Alex Padilla.

This is a horrifying moment in our nation’s history.

34,746 8,128 1,976 518
9 months ago

not a data take but this is fucked up. cutting food benefits to poor moms, infants, and toddlers is pointlessly cruel. not a partisan issue, just straightforwardly fucked. the cruelty is the point. call your congressperson

1,946 630 60 11
9 months ago
A set of eight rectangular cookies arranged on a square white plate against a dark wooden background. Each cookie is inspired by a wallpaper design by Morris & Co. The patterns represented feature different floral and leaf shapes in shades of baby blue, soft pink, leafy green, mustard yellow, cream, and dark grey.

Today is National Biscuit Day, and it’s about time that I populated this account with biscuit (cookie) sets from the past few years. Here are some of my favourites. 🧵

First up, a set inspired by the delicious designs of William Morris and John Henry Dearle.

8,503 1,898 342 541
10 months ago

Let me say this again:

If a president can illegally deport someone, conspire with that country’s leader to abandon them to human rights abuses, and face no consequences, we are in a hellish authoritarian moment. What a fucking evil, illiberal government this is.

2,156 611 0 10
10 months ago

This is evil.

1 0 0 0
10 months ago
Preview
No evidence linking Tufts student to antisemitism or terrorism, State Dept. office found An internal memo, prepared before Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by ICE, raises doubts about the Trump administration’s claims that she supports Hamas.

This Tufts student was grabbed off the street, cuffed and taken out of state solely because she co-wrote a completely respectful oped in the student paper.

And Rubio’s State Dept now admits they have nothing more damning than that.

Gift link wapo.st/4j8d5Uh

3,351 1,140 50 54
11 months ago

On, Wisconsin!

1 0 0 0