Dietrich Vollrath is an American economist and professor at the University of Houston. He is an expert in the fields of public economics, labor economics, and economic development. He has published extensively on topics such as the economics of poverty, inequality, and economic mobility. Vollrath has a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has held faculty positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Houston. Vollrath's research focuses on the economic effects of public policies, such as the minimum wage, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Affordable Care Act. He has also studied the effects of economic inequality on economic mobility and the labor market. His research has been published in leading economics journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Vollrath has received numerous awards for his research, including the American Economic Association's John Bates Clark Medal, the National Science Foundation's CAREER Award, and the American Economic Association's Kenneth Arrow Award. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.