Bill, Janice, Cameren and Josh
Bill - January 2008Contact Information
Professor of Economics
Dartmouth College
Department of Economics
6106 Rockefeller Hall - Room 324
Hanover, NH 03755-3514
Telephone: (603) 646-2940
Fax: (603) 646-2122
bill.fischel@dartmouth.edu
Curriculum Vita
Working Papers
Autobiographical Essay and Links, February 2009- I have been a professor in the Dartmouth College Economics Department since 1973 and was named the Patricia F. and William B. Hale '44 Professor in Arts and Sciences in 2002. The courses I teach are Economics 1 (Introductory Micro), Economics 2 (Policy Issues), and Economics 38 (Urban and Land Use).
- My current research is on the economics of American public school districts, which numbered over 200,000 in 1910 and now number fewer than 15,000. My book on this subject is "Making the Grade: The Economic Evolution of American School Districts," which will be published by the University of Chicago Press later this year. Much of the book attempts to explain the transformation of education from one-room schools, which were ungraded, to the age-graded schools we now reflexively think of as "real school." (Select this link for a cool map of the many one-room school districts of Middlebury, Vermont, in 1871, courtesy of Middlebury College Library.) The book's preface and first chapter are available under my working papers. (Select this for a jpg map of American school districts in 2000, provided courtesy of Sarah Battersby.)
- My scholarly work has focused on regulatory takings and on the economics of local government, especially the Tiebout hypothesis, zoning, and property taxation. I was the organizer and editor of a book of essays, "The Tiebout Model at Fifty" (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2006). My other recent book, "The Homevoter Hypothesis," was published by Harvard University Press in 2001. The preface, first chapter, and references are among my working papers. I have written two previous books: "The Economics of Zoning Laws" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985) and "Regulatory Takings" (Harvard University Press, 1995).
- A special interest is my follow-up on regulatory takings cases to see what happened afterwards, as in my photographic essays (Lucas Essay) (Lucas Update) on Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992). A rethinking of regulatory takings is in my paper on Miller v. Schoene. I have taken year-long leaves at the University of California at Davis (1981); at Santa Barbara (1986 and 2006); and at Berkeley's Law School (1992). I also spent a year at the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington in Seattle (1999). I graduated from Amherst College in 1967 and got a PhD from Princeton University in 1973. I studied some law (but do not have a law degree) at Vermont Law School.
- My wife, Janice and I live in Hanover in the Connecticut River Valley of New Hampshire, where we both served on town land-use boards during the 1990s. Janice makes photographic note cards, which she sells to retailers for resale to the public. You can see her wares at http://www.jgfischel.com. We are both natives of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, though I grew up in nearby Lower Saucon Township and attended Hellertown High School. I enjoy back-road bicycling, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. Janice and I doggedly follow Dartmouth men's basketball. We are also architecture enthusiasts with a special fondness for the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright.
- Our son, Josh, graduated from Amherst College (class of 2000) and received his master's degree from the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan in 2007. He is employed by ACA New England (American Camp Association), in Lexington, Mass. Last summer he married Cameren Cousins, a Middlebury graduate who teaches Latin at the Fenn School in Concord, Mass.
