Chris M. Herbst is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Affairs and a Faculty Affiliate in the School of Social Work and the Center for Population Dynamics at Arizona State University. He received a Ph.D. in Public Policy in 2007 from the University of Maryland (College Park) School of Public Policy. His dissertation on U.S. child care subsidy policy and welfare reform received the 2006-2007 Ph.D. Dissertation Award from the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM). In 2007, he received a Fulbright Fellowship to study the Danish welfare and labor market systems at Aalborg University in Denmark.

Chris' research focuses primarily on understanding the impact of child care and welfare policies on the well-being of children and parents. His research projects have examined the impact of the U.S. child care subsidy system on children's cognitive and behavioral development as well as maternal health and the quality of the parent-child relationship. Another stream of research assesses the effect of recent reforms to tax and transfer policies on single mothers' subjective well-being, as measured by survey questions on happiness and life satisfaction. Chris' work has been published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Population Economics, Journal of Economic Psychology, and Journal of Urban Economics.

He joined IZA as a Research Fellow in November 2012.