William R. Johnson

Georgia S. Bankard Professor

Department of Economics

University of Virginia

email: wjohnson at virginia dot edu

phone: (434) 924-3251
fax: (434) 982-2904
U.S. mail and UVA messenger mail address:

P.O. Box 400182, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4182
Fedex and private delivery:

Department of Economics, Room 237, Monroe Hall, 248 McCormick Rd., Charlottesville, VA 22903

Office: Room 232, Monroe Hall

Editor: Journal of Labor Economics

Editor: Papers and Proceedings of the American Economic Association

Associate Editor: Southern Economic Journal

Past-President: Southern Economic Association

Recent Research Papers (downloadable as PDF files)

Black –White Differences

· Evaluating a Simple Model for Estimating Black-White Gaps in Median Wages (with D. Neal and Y. Kitamura), AER, May 2000

· Basic Skills and the Black-White Earnings Gap (with Derek Neal) In C. Jencks and M. Phillips, The Black-White Test Score Gap

Higher Education

· Are Public Subsidies to Higher Education Regressive ? (Education Finance and Policy, Summer 2006)

· When is the Efficient Subsidy to Higher Education the Equitable Subsidy ?

· Faculty without Students: Resource Allocation in Higher Education (with Sarah Turner) Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring, 2009

Other Labor Topics

· Fixed Costs and Hours Constraints

· House Prices and Female Labor Force Participation

Intellectual Property

· Creative Pricing in Markets for Intellectual Property (Review of Economic Research on Copyright Issues, vol 2(1), 2005)

· The Economics of Ideas and the Ideas of Economists (presidential address to the Southern Economic Association), published in the Southern Economic Journal, July 2006)

Op Ed Pieces:

· "A Steadier State for Hiring in Colleges" (Chronicle of Higher Education, June 6, 2003)

· "Lawn of Averages" (Washington Post, March 9, 2003)

To the Economics Department Home Page

Last Updated on October 23, 2009 by William R. Johnson