Amanda is an Associate Professor at Cornell University in the Department of Economics and the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. She is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and an affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) - North America. Amanda Agan’s research lies at the intersections of economics, law, and public policy with a focus on the economics of crime and labor market discrimination. Her work tries studies the consequences and determinants of criminal legal involvement and how various policies can change the incentives of defendants, criminal justice actors, and people with records with a particular emphasis on how criminal involvement impacts labor market opportunities (and vice versa). She also studies sources of and policies to constrain the impacts of discrimination in the labor market and other spheres. Prior to joining the Cornell Economics Department and Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, she served as Associate Professor of Economics at Rutgers University and was previously a post-doctoral research associate in the Economics Department and the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University. She received her Ph.D. Economics from the University of Chicago in 2013 and holds a B.A. in Economics from George Mason University.

Amanda joined IZA as a Research Fellow in April 2023.