Jesse Rothstein is the faculty director of the California Policy Lab and professor of public policy and economics at the University of California, Berkeley. From 2015-2020, he was director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE). Prof. Rothstein has affiliations with UC Berkeley’s Department of Economics and the Goldman School of Public Policy. He previously served as Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor and as Senior Economist with the Council of Economic Advisers, Executive Office of the President, both in the Obama Administration.
Prof. Rothstein's research focuses on education policy and on the labor market. His recent work includes studies of teacher quality and of the effects of Unemployment Insurance during the Great Recession. His work has been published in leading journals in economics, public policy, education, and law. He also testified as an expert witness regarding teacher evaluation in the Vergara v. California trial in 2014.
He received a Ph.D. in economics and a Masters in public policy, both from the University of California, Berkeley, and an A.B. from Harvard. He is a member of the editorial boards of the American Economic Review, Industrial Relations and the National Education Policy Center. He was named the John T. Dunlop Outstanding Scholar by the Labor and Employment Relations Association in 2011. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a fellow of the National Education Policy Center, the CESifo Research Network, and the IZA.
Areas of Expertise: tax policy, unemployment, local public finance, teacher quality, black-white gap, segregation, education policy, labor markets, inequality
Learn more about Jesse Rothstein on his IRLE webpage or his personal website.
