Assessing Meritocracy

Name: Assessing Meritocracy
Start: 2026-02-26T08:00:00-06:00
End: 2026-02-27T17:00:00-06:00
Location: The University of Chicago John W. Boyer Center in Paris 41 rue des Grands Moulins 75013 Paris, France

Conference | One-Time Event

February 26 – 27, 2026 | 8:00am – 5:00pm

Location The University of Chicago John W. Boyer Center in Paris 41 rue des Grands Moulins 75013 Paris, France

Organizers Steven Durlauf, Geoffrey Wodtke

The event will bring together U.S. and European academics to explore normative and positive dimensions of meritocracy with some focus on comparative aspects of meritocratic institutions in the two regions. We aim to develop work on meritocracy that employs commonalities and heterogeneities between European countries and the United States in order to understand how different societies have operationalized meritocracy and how this operationalization has realized meritocratic goals and affected inequality. This event will be the first in a series and will generate long-term collaborations with interdisciplinary scholars interested in evaluating the positive and normative aspects of meritocracy.

Participation is by invitation only.