Scholar Interviews

Kenworthy, a professor of sociology and the Yankelovich Chair in Social Thought at the University of California, San Diego, discusses the findings in his latest book, which examines whether reducing income inequality would have beneficial effects on living standards, health, economic opportunity, the functioning of democracy, and subjective measures of happiness.

Marai Hayes, one of the Stone Center's new postdoctoral scholars, discusses her research projects, how she became interested in the connections between health and inequality, and the likely impacts of recent health policy changes at the federal level.

Postdoctoral scholar Meredith Slopen discusses her upcoming position in Stony Brook University’s School of Social Welfare, the current academic and social services job markets, and how to help other researchers who have faced professional upheaval in recent months.

Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the founding director of the open platform SocArXiv, talks about his new book, Citizen Scholar, a guide for researchers who want to engage with the public and balance their professional and activist goals.

Swapnil Landge, a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the Graduate Center and a Stone Center Junior Scholar, discusses his research goals, his interest in inequality, and what led him to investigate the intangible transfers of skills between parents and children.

Salvatore Morelli, whose research was cited by The Economist in a recent article on the “return of inheritocracy,” discusses the surge in inherited wealth, what this means for wealth inequality, and potential solutions for the negative effects of the ongoing Great Wealth Transfer.

Stone Center Postdoctoral Scholar Zhexun Mo discusses two recent papers he contributed to the Stone Center Working Paper Series that focus on perceptions of inequality and redistribution in China.

Meredith Slopen, a Stone Center postdoctoral scholar, discusses her project on how older workers benefit from paid family leave and paid sick leave policies, for which she recently received a fellowship from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Retirement and Disability Research Center and the Institute for Research on Poverty.

Aman Desai, a Ph.D. candidate in economics and a Stone Center Junior Scholar, discusses his working paper "Measuring Income Inequality of Opportunity," and how his interest in engineering and mathematics led him to inequality studies.

Suresh Naidu, a Stone Center Affiliated Scholar and a professor of economics and international and public affairs at Columbia University, discusses who is currently benefiting the most from the union premium, the data challenges in historical research on unions and how he overcame them, and the significant barriers U.S. workers still face in forming a union.