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Jesse Rothstein

Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy and Economics; Faculty Director, California Policy Lab

Jesse Rothstein is a public and labor economist.  His research focuses on education and tax policy, and particularly on the way that public institutions ameliorate or reinforce the effects of children’s families on their academic and economic outcomes.  Within education, he has conducted studies on teacher evaluation; on the value of school infrastructure spending; on affirmative action in college and graduate school admissions; and on the causes and consequences of racial segregation.  He has also written about the effects of unemployment insurance on job search and labor force participation; the role of structural factors in impeding recovery from the Great Recession; and the incidence of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Rothstein's work has been published in the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Public Economics, the Chicago Law Review, and the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, among other outlets.  He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MPP from the Goldman School, and he is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 2009-2010 he served as a Senior Economist for the Council of Economic Advisers and then as Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.

Contact and Office Hours

Phone (510) 495-0646

Email Email Jesse Rothstein

Website Personal Website

Website Curriculum Vitae

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LinkedIn LinkedIn

Office Office – GSPP 2607 Hearst, Room 313

Office Office – Economics 631B Evans

Office Office – IRLE 2521 Channing Way

Clock Office Hours

About

Areas of Expertise

  • Tax Policy
  • Economic Policy
  • Education
  • Labor and Employment
  • Program Evaluation
  • Public Finance
  • Quantitative Methods
  • Research Methods
  • Race & Policy
  • Higher Education
  • Children, Youth and Families

Research

Research Affiliations

Working Papers

The Lost Generation? Scarring after the Great Recession

Co-authors:

Working Paper (May 2019)

Inequality of Educational Opportunity? Schools as Mediators of the Intergenerational Transmission of Income

Co-authors:

Working Paper (January 2019)

The Augmented Synthetic Control Method

Co-authors: Jesse RothsteinAvi Feller, Eli Ben-Michael

Working Paper (November 2018)

Selected Publications

Can Nudges Increase Take-up of the EITC?: Evidence from Multiple Field Experiments

Linos E., Prohofsky, A., Ramesh, A., Rothstein, J., Unrath, M. 2021. Can Nudges Increase Take-up of the EITC? Evidence from Multiple Field Experiments. Forthcoming in American Economic Journal: Policy

Universal Basic Income in the US and Advanced Countries

Hoynes, Hilary and Jesse Rothstein. 2019. “Universal Basic Income in the United States and Advanced Countries,” Annual Review of Economics, Volume 11, pp. 929–58.

Increasing Take-up of Cal Grants

Linos E., Reddy V., and Rothstein J. 2018. Increasing Take-up of Cal Grants. In Designing Financial Aid for California’s Future. The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) Research Report. November.

School Finance Reform and the Distribution of Student Achievement

with Julien Lafortune and Diane Schanzenbach
2018. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 10(2), April.

Making Work Pay Better Through an Expanded Earned Income Tax Credit

Hilary Hoynes, Jesse Rothstein and Krista Ruffini, "Making Work Pay Better Through an Expanded Earned Income Tax Credit" in Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach and Ryan Nunn, eds, The 51% Driving Growth through Women's Economic Participation, The Hamilton Project.

In the News

Articles and Op-Eds

Advice for the Next President: Expand Social Security

Bloomberg, November 3, 2016

Taking on Teacher Tenure Backfires

The New York Times, June 12, 2014

Media Citations

Webcasts

Berkeley Conversations - COVID-19: Economic Impact, Human Solutions

Berkeley Conversations - COVID-19: Economic Impact, Human Solutions

Henry E Brady, Ellora Derenoncourt, Hilary Hoynes, Jesse Rothstein, Gabriel Zucman,

Date: April 10, 2020 Duration: 60 minutes

The California Policy Lab with Jesse Rothstein and Evan White

The California Policy Lab with Jesse Rothstein and Evan White

Jesse Rothstein, Evan White, Henry E. Brady,

Date: June 5, 2017 Duration: 25 minutes

Evaluating Teacher Evaluation - What are Value-Added Metrics?

Dr. Jesse Rothstein,

Date: May 30, 2012 Duration: 83 minutes

2012 Wildavsky Forum for Public Policy: Economic Possibilities for Our Children

2012 Wildavsky Forum for Public Policy: Economic Possibilities for Our Children

Larry Summers,

Event: 2012 Wildavsky Forum - Lawrence H. Summers

Date: April 12, 2012 Duration: 76 minutes

Getting Teacher Evaluation Right: A Challenge for Policy Makers

Jesse Rothstein, Edward H. Haertel, Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, Linda Darling-Hammond, Bethany Little,

Event: AERA Hill Briefing

Date: September 14, 2011 Duration: 116 minutes

Last updated on 08/30/2022