The Stone Center announced it has selected two scholars for its new postdoctoral scholars program focused on producing research on topics such as earnings, income, and wealth inequality. The two scholars, each appointed for two years, were selected from a pool of more than 150 applicants.
Bilyana Petrova is a political scientist specializing in political economy. Her research interests lie at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations. She has worked on the determinants of economic inequality and redistribution, the causes and consequences of the rise of the financial sector in industrialized democracies, and the factors that affect individual attitudes toward democracy and redistribution in post-communist countries. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was previously a postdoctoral fellow in the Max Weber Programme at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, where she worked on a book manuscript exploring the impact of structural economic transformations and economic policy choices on market income inequality in Eastern Europe and Latin America.
Marco Ranaldi was chosen for the postdoctoral position reserved for a scholar whose research analyzes high-end wealth. He is close to completing a Ph.D. in economics at the Paris School of Economics and University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. His dissertation introduces an innovative method for measuring inequality of income composition across the income distribution. His postdoctoral project will apply this method to the wealth distribution. Currently he is a consultant at the Development Research Group of the World Bank in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a visiting scholar at the Department of Public Policy and Intervention and the INET Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford.
“We are excited and delighted to have Bilyana and Marco join the Stone Center as our first postdoctoral scholars,” said Professor Janet C. Gornick (Political Science, Sociology), director of the Stone Center. “Their substantive knowledge and interests, and their impressive technical skills, will surely enhance the Stone Center’s research portfolio. We are grateful to Jim and Cathy Stone for supporting this new initiative, and we look forward to welcoming more talented young scholars in the coming years.”
Both Petrova and Ranaldi will arrive at the Stone Center this fall. Two additional postdoctoral scholars will be selected to join the Stone Center in fall 2020.
The postdoctoral program was launched with a gift last year of $1.2 million from The James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation. In addition to their salaries, the scholars will receive funding for research expenses and for hiring Graduate Center students as research assistants.
The Stone Center’s mission is to build and disseminate knowledge related to the causes, nature, and consequences of multiple forms of socio-economic inequality. The postdoctoral researchers will join a team with deep experience using the data, and will work closely with the center’s six core faculty members: Professors Gornick, Leslie McCall, Paul Krugman, Branko Milanovic, Salvatore Morelli, and Miles Corak.