Heinrich Hock, Ph.D.

Dr. Heinrich Hock is an economist with 19 years of experience conducting research on labor, education, disability, and social insurance. His work focuses on producing results that help policymakers and program staff understand program outcomes for priority populations and research-based options for improving outcomes. He develops rigorous and feasible plans for research designs, data collection and analysis, and dissemination of findings. Hock has led work on over a dozen labor-related projects for the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and other funders to assess the outcomes for groups such as dislocated workers, youth and adult jobseekers with disabilities, women with low incomes, and veterans. Hock also has played a key role in U.S. Department of Education (ED) studies to identify solutions for improving outcomes among underserved groups.

Hock helps advance Abt’s portfolio of evaluation studies to grow the evidence base on effective employment and training programs. He co-leads work to design options for rigorous tests of services that can help youth with disabilities overcome barriers to succeeding in the adult workforce, as part of the DOL – funded Equitable Transition Models Evaluation. Additionally, he contributes to the DOL’s Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessments Evidence Building project, and develops new research studies to meet the needs of DOL and other funders.

Before joining Abt, Hock led impact evaluations for DOL focusing on the new workforce services for adult and youth jobseekers with disabilities and a new self-employment training model for laid-off workers. He also led analysis for DOL to assess expansions to the Unemployment Insurance system in the wake of the Great Recession. For ED, he led initial impact analyses for a study of English Learner reclassification policies and co-led the design of a study to identify and test promising strategies to improve the adult outcomes of high school students with disabilities. He also contributed to an evaluation of a framework ED promoted to help adult learners gain skills for personal and workplace success. In addition, Hock led evaluation activities for a Social Security Administration test of new rules about work for disability beneficiaries.

This work was conducted while Hock was at Westat, the American Institutes for Research, and Mathematica. He was also previously an assistant professor of economics at Florida State University.

Expertise

• Designing and executing impact and mixed-method evaluations
• Collecting and analyzing administrative, survey, and interview data
• Identifying, assessing feasibility, and testing new services and supports for underserved groups 
• Building evidence on reemployment programs, training, and unemployment assistance
• Improving education and career development outcomes among youth with disabilities

Key Projects

• Equitable Transition Models Evaluation
• Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessments Evidence Building Portfolio Project

Publications

• Cody, S., Munkacsy, K., Perez-Zetune, V., Hock, H., Wakar, B., Welch, R., & Michaels, M. (2024). Building an equitable construction workforce: Understanding and increasing the proportion of women and people of color in construction. Submitted to DOL. Arlington, VA: Westat Insight.
• Hock, H., Lee Luca, D., Kautz, T., & Stapleton, D. (2023). Improving the outcomes of youth with medical limitations: Evidence from the National Job Corps Study. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 32(3), 636–656.
• Hock, H., Jones, J. T., Levere, M., & Wittenburg, D. (2021). Using behavioral outreach to counteract administrative burden and encourage take-up of simplified disability payment rules. Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, 4(1), 1–11.
• Klayman, D., Di Biase, C., Searson, A., & Hock, H. (2019). Disability Employment Initiative impact evaluation: Round 1 through round 4 grantees. Submitted to DOL. Gaithersburg, MD: Social Dynamics. 
• Hock, H., Anderson, M. A., & Santillano, R. (2018). Supporting self-employment as a reemployment strategy: Impacts of a pilot program for dislocated workers after 18 months. Submitted to DOL. Washington, DC: Mathematica.