Scholar Interviews

Manuel Schechtl, a 2022–2024 Stone Center postdoctoral scholar, discusses his Stone Center Working Paper, which combines two new sources of data to compare the extent of democratic backsliding in all 50 U.S. states.

Affiliated Scholar Maximilian Kasy discusses his new book, The Means of Prediction: How AI Really Works (and Who Benefits), which offers a convincing argument for democratic control over AI’s objectives.

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.