Rucker C. Johnson is the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy in the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. As a labor economist who specializes in the economics of education, Johnson’s work considers the role of poverty and inequality in affecting life chances.
Johnson was inducted as the Sir Arthur Lewis Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the National Academy of Education, and received the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. His research has appeared in leading academic journals, featured in mainstream media outlets, and he has been invited to give policy briefings at the White House and on Capitol Hill. He is the author of the book Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works.
Johnson is committed to advance his scholarly agenda of fusing insights from multiple disciplinary perspectives to improve our understanding of the causes, consequences, and remedies of inequality in this country. Johnson earned his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Michigan. At UC-Berkeley (2004-present), he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in applied econometrics and topical courses in race, poverty & inequality.
Contact and Office Hours
Office 2607 Hearst, Room 112
Office Hours
By appointment
About
Areas of Expertise
- Labor and Employment
- Race, Poverty & Inequality
- Economics of Education
- Health Disparities
- Social Welfare Policy
Curriculum Vitae
Other Affiliations
- Berkeley School of Education, Affiliated Professor
Research
Selected Publications
Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works
Johnson, Rucker C. Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works (2019). New York, NY: Basic Books and Russell Sage Foundation Press.
Many Americans believe that the racial integration of US schools was a social experiment doomed from the start. But in fact, economist Rucker C. Johnson contends, school integration efforts in the 1970s and 1980s were overwhelmingly successful, and our retreat from them has had dire effects on our society.
In Children of the Dream, Johnson unearths the astonishing truth about integration’s spectacular achievement in America. Drawing on original longitudinal studies going back to the 1960s, he shows that students who attended integrated and well-funded schools were more successful in life than those who did not—and that this holds true for children of all races. Indeed, Johnson's research shows that such schools were nothing less than the primary engine of social mobility in the decades after the civil rights movement. Yet in the face of racial backlash, America gave up on integration. Since the highpoint of integration in 1988, we have regressed, and segregation again prevails.
Explaining why integration worked, why it was abandoned, and how it can be revived to the benefit of all, Children of the Dream offers a radical new perspective on American social policy. It is essential reading in our divided times.
Reducing Inequality Through Dynamic Complementarity: Evidence from Head Start and Public School Spending
Johnson, Rucker C. and C. Kirabo Jackson (Forthcoming). “Reducing Inequality Through Dynamic Complementarity: Evidence from Head Start and Public School Spending”. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.
We compare the adult outcomes of cohorts who were differentially exposed to policy-induced changes in Head Start and K12 spending, depending on place and year of birth. IV and sibling-difference estimates indicate that, for poor children, these policies both increased educational attainment and earnings, and reduced poverty and incarceration. The benefits of Head Start were larger when followed by access to better-funded schools, and increases in K12 spending were more efficacious when preceded by Head Start exposure. The findings suggest dynamic complementarities, implying that early educational investments that are sustained may break the cycle of poverty.
Follow the Money: School Spending from Title I to Adult Earnings
Johnson, Rucker C. (2015). “Follow the Money: School Spending from Title I to Adult Earnings”. Edited volume, ESEA at 50, The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences.
Title I funding has been the largest federal program of K-12 education for the past 50 years with the objective to eliminate the educational disadvantage associated with poverty. I provide new evidence on the long-term effects of school spending from Title I on children's educational and adult economic outcomes. To study effects of Title I, I link school district spending and administrative data on Title I funding to nationally-representative data on children born between 1950 and 1977 and followed through 2011. Models include controls for birth cohort and school district fixed effects, childhood family and neighborhood characteristics, and other policies. I find that increases in Title I funding are significantly related to increases in educational attainment, high school graduation rates, higher earnings and work hours, reductions in grade repetition, school suspension/expulsion, incarceration, and reductions in the annual incidence of poverty in adulthood; effects on educational outcomes are more pronounced for poor children.
The Effects of School Spending on Educational & Economic Outcomes: Evidence from School Finance Reforms
Jackson, Kirabo, Rucker C. Johnson, Claudia Persico (2015). “The Effects of School Spending on Educational & Economic Outcomes: Evidence from School Finance Reforms”. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 131(1): 157-218.
Since the Coleman Report, many have questioned whether public school spending affects student outcomes. The school finance reforms that began in the early 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s caused dramatic changes to the structure of K–12 education spending in the United States. To study the effect of these school finance reform–induced changes in public school spending on long-run adult outcomes, we link school spending and school finance reform data to detailed, nationally representative data on children born between 1955 and 1985 and followed through 2011. We use the timing of the passage of court-mandated reforms and their associated type of funding formula change as exogenous shifters of school spending, and we compare the adult outcomes of cohorts that were differentially exposed to school finance reforms, depending on place and year of birth. Event study and instrumental variable models reveal that a 10% increase in per pupil spending each year for all 12 years of public school leads to 0.31 more completed years of education, about 7% higher wages, and a 3.2 percentage point reduction in the annual incidence of adult poverty; effects are much more pronounced for children from low-income families. Exogenous spending increases were associated with notable improvements in measured school inputs, including reductions in student-to-teacher ratios, increases in teacher salaries, and longer school years.
How Much Crime Reduction Does the Marginal Prisoner Buy?
Johnson, Rucker and Steven Raphael (2012) “How Much Crime Reduction Does the Marginal Prisoner Buy?” Journal of Law and Economics, 55(2) 275-310.
We estimate the effect of changes in incarceration rates on changes in crime rates using state-level panel data. We develop an instrument for future changes in incarceration rates based on the theoretically predicted dynamic adjustment path of the aggregate incarceration rate in response to a shock to prison entrance or exit transition probabilities. Given that incarceration rates adjust to permanent changes in behavior with a dynamic lag, one can identify variation in incarceration rates that is not contaminated by contemporary changes in criminal behavior. For the period 1978-2004, we find crime-prison elasticities that are considerably larger than those implied by ordinary least squares estimates. We also present results for two sub-periods: 1978-90 and 1991-2004. Our instrumental variables estimates for the earlier period suggest relatively large crime-prison effects. For the later time period, however, the effects of changes in incarceration rates on crime rates are much smaller.
In the News
Articles and Op-Eds
To Dream Again: The Revival of School Integration
The Crisis Magazine (official publication of the NAACP), May 17, 2019
Why school integration works
Washington Post, May 16, 2019
In Search of Integration: Beyond Black & White
Furman Center, January 1, 2013
Media Citations
The Integration Success Stories
The New Republic, August 23, 2019
Integration vs. White Intransigence
New York Times, July 17, 2019
A scholar revives the argument for racial integration in schools
The Hechinger Report, June 3, 2019
74 Interview: Professor Rucker Johnson on How School Integration Helped Black Students — and How Much More Is Possible When It’s Paired With Early Education & Spending Reforms
The 74, May 18, 2019
Rucker Johnson and the Grandchildren of Desegregation (BvB@65)
The Integrated Schools Podcast, April 18, 2019
Webcasts
The Success of Integrating Schools with Rucker Johnson - In the Living Room with Henry E. Brady
Rucker Johnson, Henry E. Brady,
Date: April 16, 2019 Duration: 29 minutes
Up from Poverty: Funding Solutions That Work
Hilary Hoynes, Rucker Johnson, Henry E. Brady,
Date: May 7, 2016 Duration: 59 minutes
The Grandchildren of Brown: The Long Legacy of School Desegregation
Rucker Johnson, Ophelia Garmon-Brown, Julian Wright, Rosie Molinary, Ivan Lowe,
Event: The Grandchildren of Brown: The Long Legacy of School Desegregation
Date: November 12, 2015 Duration: 107 minutes
Desegregation and (Un)equal Opportunity
Rucker Johnson,
Date: November 19, 2012 Duration: 18 minutes
Last updated on 11/02/2022