His research spans the political and economic trade-offs of higher education; the impact of election pressures on judges' sentencing decisions; and new strategies to measure ideological fervor. Yuchtman and his colleagues have documented how the content of higher education can either spur or block economic dynamism. On the one hand, the expansion of universities in medieval Europe sparked a re-discovery of Roman law that created a useful foundation for modern commerce. By contrast, Chinese elites in the late 19th Century spurned Western science education in favor of "teaching to the test" on Confucian principles.