Heather Royer (born c. 1974) is an American economist who is a Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara[1] and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
[4] She was a member of the women's team that set a world record in a swimming relay from Palos Verdes to Santa Catalina Island in 1994,[5] and swam the English Channel in 1999.
[9] She has studied how education affects health using variation induced by school-entry and compulsory schooling policies in the U.S. and in England.
[10] In work with Stefanie Fischer and Corey White, she studied the effects of the closure of rural obstetrical units on infant and maternal health.
[11] In work with Mariana Carrera, she also found that commitment contracts, which offered people funds to go to the gym during a three-month experiment period, were effective at motivating people to develop a habit of gym-going that lasted for years after the experiment ended.