Jonathan Rothwell

Jonathan Rothwell is Gallup’s Principal Economist, where he researches and publishes on a broad range of social science topics and advises Gallup clients and associates on research questions and analytics, particularly in the areas of higher education, job quality, the effects of trade and technology on the labor market, and entrepreneurship. He occasionally contributes to the New York Times’s Upshot column and is host of the Gallup-Knight Foundation podcast Out of the Echo Chamber, about the relationship between news media and democracy. He is author of the book A Republic of Equals: A Manifesto for a Just Society, which will be published by Princeton University Press in November 2019. He is also a visiting scholar at the George Washington Institute of Public Policy.

While at Gallup, Jonathan’s scholarly publications have included an analysis of who supported various presidential candidates during the 2016 election, the causes of slowing U.S. productivity growth, the effect of trade competition on regional economic outcomes, and the validity of using consumer ratings to assess colleges. In collaboration with Brookings scholars, he has been actively involved in research studying the assets of majority-black neighborhoods.

Before joining Gallup, Jonathan was a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program. He frequently published research on issues such as trade; innovation; zoning and housing markets; education; college quality; the supply and demand for skills; residential segregation by income, race and ethnicity; and the causes of income inequality. He was a regular contributor to Social Mobility Memos, the Brookings blog on social mobility. In 2015, he was commissioned by the National Academies of Science to define “skilled technical work.”

He received a PhD in Public Affairs from Princeton University in 2009.

EDUCATION

• Ph.D. Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
• M.A. Economics, New School
• M.A. Clinical Psychology, Duquesne University
• B.S. Psychology, Biological and Evolutionary Concentration, Pennsylvania State University, University Park