The Inequality Podcast

The most complete measures of inequality consider the full life-course of an individual, from childhood to adulthood, and from adulthood to old age. One determinant of life outcomes is education, particularly whether one has obtained a college degree. Research has shown clear benefits of earning a diploma. But many qualified young people do not pursue one. Why?Today on the show, we present two conversations that address this question. First, host Steven Durlauf is joined by Salvador Navarro, professor of economics at the University of Western Ontario and a Stone Center affiliate. They discuss his research into the complex set of factors that lead some students not to attend college. Then, Steven is joined by Stephen Trejo, a professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin and a leading expert on the economic standing of Hispanic Americans. They discuss why college graduation rates have remained stubbornly low among the children and grandchildren of Hispanic immigrants.

Some of the most heated debates in American life center on how much intergenerational inequality is influenced by historical context. Inequality, of course, doesn’t come out of nowhere—history always exerts some influence—but to what extent are today’s ills attributable to those of the past?The challenge for scholars is to pinpoint the exact mechanisms through which decades- or centuries-old forces persist. The past may not be dead—so how does it live on, empirically?Deirdre Bloome, Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Faculty Member at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, joins host Steven Durlauf to discuss her work measuring the historical evolution of racial inequalities in the family and the economy, and their lasting impact on mobility.”

Decades after the end of Jim Crow, residential segregation remains a major factor in American life. The historical causes of this are well-known; less so are the ongoing forces that maintain segregation, despite progress made in other areas. For example, why do so many more high-income Black households live in low-income neighborhoods when compared to their affluent white counterparts? What drives this and other forms of 21st-century segregation?Dionissi Aliprantis is a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Research on Governance, Inequality and Conflict (CERGIC) at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) de Lyon in France. His research has focused on identifying neighborhood effects, quantifying the factors contributing to the racial wealth gap, and more. He joins host Steven Durlauf to discuss segregation, neighborhood effects, and the methodological challenges in studying them.

Traditional economic models often rely on tidy assumptions: rational agents, stable equilibria, linear relationships and so on. But those models can struggle to capture the messy reality of actual systems. Societies are constantly evolving. Assumptions can shift. And isolating the variables that underlie such changes can be daunting.Scott Page is the John Seely Brown Distinguished University Professor of Complexity, Social Science, and Management at the University of Michigan. He joins host Steven Durlauf to discuss the relatively brief history of complex systems thinking and its impact on the social sciences. They also discuss Page’s work on diversity and its capacity to create more robust systems.

The United States doesn’t have enough affordable housing. It has also failed to adequately address the climate crisis. These statements may not appear connected in any obvious way, but addressing one crisis inevitably leads to questions about the other. How do we build millions of new homes without leaving a massive carbon footprint? Perhaps one answer is to retrofit. But if cities fund eco-friendly renovations in working-class neighborhoods, what’s to stop “green gentrification”?Daniel Aldana Cohen’s work sits at this intersection. He is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is director of the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaboration and serves as a member of the Graduate Group of the Designated Emphasis in Political Economy. On this episode, he speaks with host Geoff Wodtke about how the United States might forge a way out of these twin crises, drawing on policy successes found abroad and in American history.

Economists are often accused of practicing a “dismal science,” a discipline defined by the sober measurement of humanity’s limits: scarcity, zero-sum propositions, and inequality. But the old stereotype overlooks a more hopeful side of the science, one in which economists resemble moral philosophers.Peter Boettke is among the foremost scholars of this latter brand of economics. He teaches at George Mason University, where he is the Director of the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center. A disciple of what is often called the Austrian school, Boettke has written about how a society organized by classical liberalism can lead to human flourishing. He discusses the intellectual history of this philosophy with host Steven Durlauf.

For tens of millions of Americans, working life is characterized by uncertainty and limited recourse. Hours can be plentiful one week and fleeting the next, and often unpredictable, with shifts arranged on short notice, at odd hours, or canceled just as erratically. The prevalence of at-will employment amplifies this insecurity, as the threat of job loss—a potentially devastating blow to both workers and their dependents—is ever-present. Often powerless against corporate practices that prioritize shareholder value over employee welfare, these workers are vulnerable to job insecurity and diminished bargaining power.Today, we examine the unstable state of American work and how we got here. First, host Geoff Wodtke is joined by Jake Rosenfeld, professor and chair of sociology at Washington University in Saint Louis. They trace the history of the American labor movement from its midcentury heyday to its downfall. The consequences of the decline in union membership loom large over the second conversation, with Daniel Schneider, a sociologist and professor at Harvard. He discusses his work exploring the extent to which precarious work has hobbled American households’ personal and economic health.

Sixty years ago, equal pay laws, the women’s movement, and widespread access to contraception ushered in a new era, transforming the lives of American women. In the years since, women’s place in higher education, the labor market, and wider society has dramatically expanded. American women live with the legacy of that progress yet remain hemmed in by its limits.Today, we present two conversations that examine the past and present of gender inequality in America. First, we are joined by economic historian Martha Bailey, the Director of UCLA's California Center for Population Research (CCPR), to discuss the outcomes of War On Poverty programs and the rise of contraception use. Later, host Geoff Wodtke speaks with sociologist Natasha Quadlin, associate professor at UCLA and fellow of the CCPR. They dissect a particularly vexing aspect of contemporary gender inequality: that women now outnumber men on college campuses, yet still face unique obstacles when they enter the job market.

In the United States, meritocracy looms large. Proponents argue that one should earn wealth and prestige through hard work, intelligence, and ability. However, any defender of meritocracy should contend with its shortcomings. Lauren Rivera is the Peter G. Peterson Chair in Corporate Ethics at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School, and the author of Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs, a book-length study of hiring practices at elite banks, law firms, and consulting companies. What she documents are processes that often fail to reward the most deserving candidates and perpetuate existing privileges.In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, Rivera lays out the case against meritocracy as it is currently understood, citing her work in Pedigree as well as other research that shows supposedly meritocratic systems failing women, racial minorities, and people with disabilities.

Thousands of years before the modern era, great thinkers were theorizing about economic inequality. Unequal conditions were a focus of both Plato and Jesus, just as it was for later thinkers like Hobbes, Rousseau and Marx.David Lay Williams is a professor of political science at DePaul University. His new book, “The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx,” traces some 2,500 years of intellectual history about inequality, drawing surprising new lessons from some of the foremost figures in the Western canon. In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, Williams discusses his findings and what we can still learn from these world-historic thinkers.