We bring together scholars across disciplines to discuss the causes and consequences of inequality and strategies to promote economic mobility. Listen and discover novel insights and strategies to address today’s most pressing issues in inequality.
What can household finance teach us about inequality? Understanding it means grappling with myriad variables. Damon Jones joins co-host Steven Durlauf to unpack income shocks, Black economists’ insights, universal basic income, and more.
Joseph Fishkin, UCLA law professor, joins Steven Durlauf to discuss how removing “bottlenecks” to opportunity and curbing economic concentration can strengthen democracy and expand the paths through which people can thrive.
Francisco Ferreira, Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies at LSE, joins Steven Durlauf to discuss how inequality is inherited across generations and why mobility differs across the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and Africa.
Adam Smith is often remembered for championing free markets, but his moral philosophy on inequality and power is less known. Eric Schliesser joins Steven Durlauf to discuss this side of Smith and the decline of the economist as moral philosopher.
Even in high-tax states, most millionaires stay put. Cristobal Young joins Steven Durlauf and Geoff Wodtke to explain why the wealthy remain rooted, and what tax return and census data reveal about mobility, local ties, and the myth of tax flight.
Education policy sparks intense debate, from school choice to testing. Caterina Calsamiglia joins Steven Durlauf to explore how evidence-based research can improve decision-making, equity, and outcomes in education.
Steven Durlauf talks with Dionissi Aliprantis about neighborhood effects, the racial wealth gap, and 21st-century segregation.
Sociologist Daniel Aldana Cohen joins Geoff Wodtke to explore the overlap between the housing and climate crises, highlighting retrofitting, policy solutions, and the risks of "green gentrification.”
Economist Peter Boettke joins Steven Durlauf to explore a more hopeful side of economics—as a moral science focused on human flourishing. They discuss the Austrian school, classical liberalism, and the intellectual roots of this tradition.
Millions of American workers face uncertainty—unstable hours, sudden shift changes, and the constant threat of job loss. Host Geoff Wodtke speaks with Jake Rosenfeld on the decline of labor unions and Daniel Schneider on how precarious work affects households.
