Christopher Neilson

Professor of Economics and Global Affairs

Faculty

Office location: 28 Hillhouse Ave

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About

Christoper Neilson is an applied microeconomist whose research focuses on the study of education markets and policies that promote equitable opportunities for human capital accumulation.

He uses a combination of methods to study how government policy affects students, families and education providers drawing on methods from industrial organization, labor economics and development economics. Neilson works closely with governments to help them leverage their data, existing evidence and technology, to design, evaluate and implement new education policies. These include the governments of Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic.

Education

PhD in Economics, Yale University, 2014
MSc in Economics, Universidad de Chile, 2006
BA in Economics, Universidad de Chile, 2005

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Explore Christopher Neilson's work

Full biography

To support his work with governments and help them implement and test innovations, Christopher Neilson founded ConsiliumBots in 2018 to served as an incubator for ideas that combine research, policy and technology in education. To date, this NGO has developed tools that have helped over 2 million families in 7 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. See the latest research and policy impact coming out of this initiative on Smart Platforms.

At Yale, Neilson holds a joint appointment at the Economics Department and the Jackson School of Global Affairs. He is a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research Industrial Organization and Education Economics programs as well as an affiliate of the J-PAL network.

Selected publications

Smart Matching Platforms and Heterogeneous Beliefs in Centralized School Choice Quarterly Journal of Economics (March 2022) with F. Arteaga, A. Kapor and S. Zimmerman
Heterogeneous Beliefs and School Choice Mechanisms American Economic Review , 110(5), May 2020 with A. Kapor and S. Zimmerman
Aftermarket Frictions and the Cost of Off Platform Options In Centralized Assignment Mechanisms Journal of Political Economy (July 2024). with A. Kapor and M. Karnani
Targeted Vouchers, Competition Among Schools, and the Academic Achievement of Poor Students Conditionally accepted at Econometrica (2025) PhD Thesis, Yale University (October 2013)
Approximating The Equilibrium Effects of Informed School Choice R&R at The Review of Economic Studies; Princeton WP No. 628 (July 2019) with C. Allende and F. Gallego
O Brother, Where Start Thou? Sibling Spillovers on College and Major Choice in Four Countries The Quarterly Journal of Economics (August 2021) with A.Altmejd, A.Barrios-Fernandez, M.Drlje, J.Goodman, M.Hurwitz, D.Kovac, C.Mulhern, J.Smith