Same-Sex Marriage and Employer Choices about Domestic Partner Benefits

Christopher (‘Kitt’) Carpenter is the E. Bronson Ingram Professor of Economics at Vanderbilt University, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and Research Fellow at IZA Institute of Labor Economics. He is also University Distinguished Professor at Vanderbilt with tenure in both the Department of Economics and the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. At Vanderbilt, Carpenter holds courtesy appointments in Health Policy; Law; Education; the Department of Medicine, Health, and Society; and the Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies. For academic year 2021-22 he was named Vanderbilt’s Bishop Joseph A. Johnson, Jr., Distinguished Leadership Professor for outstanding contributions to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Carpenter is also Faculty Director for the Vanderbilt Program in Public Policy Studies, Founder and Director of the Vanderbilt LGBTQ+ Policy Lab, Co-founder and Co-Chair of the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of LGBTQ+ Individuals in the Economics Profession, President-Elect of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, and Director of the Health Economics Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is an Editor at the Journal of Health Economics, an Associate Editor at the American Journal of Health Economics, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. He studies the causes and consequences of risky and preventive health behaviors, especially the role of public health policies, as well as LGBT issues in economics and demography. His research has been continuously supported by the National Institute of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Cancer Society. In 2022, Carpenter was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Carpenter earned a BA in math, economics, and public service from Albion College in Michigan in 1997 and a PhD in economics from UC Berkeley in 2002. He held positions at the University of Michigan (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar in Health Policy) and the University of California at Irvine (Assistant and Associate Professor) prior to joining Vanderbilt in 2013.

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