[6] Arcidiacono's research on affirmative action in higher education has centered on the theme that there exists a trade-off between institutional quality and the fit between a school and a student.
Arcidiacono, along with Robert A. Miller and John Bailey Jones, is the co-developer of using the Expectation–maximization algorithm and conditional choice probabilities (CCPs) to simplify the maximum likelihood estimation of structural econometric models.
[17] Arcidiacono has served in several editorial positions since 2007:[18] Along with Richard D. Kahlenberg, Arcidiacono was hired by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) to serve as an expert witness in the Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College lawsuit, which was heard by Allison D. Burroughs in Massachusetts federal district court in Boston in October 2018.
[20] Arcidiacono and Kahlenberg also served as expert witnesses for SFFA in the Students for Fair Admissions v. UNC lawsuit, with the defendants hiring Caroline Hoxby and Bridget Terry Long.
[23] On June 15, 2018, many documents surrounding the Harvard litigation (including the expert reports of Arcidiacono and Card) were publicly unsealed.
[25] The economists involved were Michael Keane, Hanming Fang, Yingyao Hu, Glenn Loury, and Matthew Shum.
This group of economists consisted of Susan Dynarski, Harry J. Holzer, Hilary Hoynes, Guido Imbens, Alan B. Krueger, Helen F. Ladd, David S. Lee, Trevon D. Logan, Alexandre Mas, Michael McPherson, Jesse Rothstein, Cecilia Rouse, Robert M. Solow, Lowell J. Taylor, Sarah Turner, and Douglas Webber.