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.
How do class, gender, and race intersect to shape inequality? This episode, Leslie McCall examines labor market change and public attitudes, challenging common assumptions about meritocracy, mobility, and who benefits in today’s economy.
For our 50th episode, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz reflects on six decades studying inequality. The Columbia economist, author, and former Clinton White House advisor discusses the ideas that shaped his career and how new technologies like AI may influence inequality.
When stereotypes substitute for evidence, the consequences can be severe. Sociologist René Flores breaks down how Americans form suspicions of "social illegality," why crime myths dominate immigration attitudes, and what it means for people living under that suspicion.
Is capitalism natural or historical? Harvard historian Sven Beckert discusses his book Capitalism: A Global History, exploring slavery's role in economic development, the great divergence, China's unprecedented growth, and ecology with host Steven Durlauf.
What is 'The Economy'? Sciences Po historian Jonathan Levy discusses his newest book, The Real Economy, exploring capital as process, what Keynes learned from Freud, and why economists need historians with host Steven Durlauf.
How has equality been used to justify hierarchy? Dive into a panel discussion from our archives where Dartmouth historian Darren McMahon joins economist Steven Durlauf, sociologist Jenny Trinitapoli, and historian Jonathan Levy to explore equality's elusive history.
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.
