Fifteen researchers associated with the GC CUNY Stone Center, including three senior scholars, attended the 2nd III/LIS Comparative Economic Inequality Conference, held in Luxembourg on February 27 and 28. The conference was cohosted by the International Inequalities Institute at LSE, which houses the UK office of LIS, in collaboration with the LIS team in Luxembourg.
Janet Gornick, director of the Stone Center, presented cross-national research on poverty and poverty reduction among able-bodied adults without dependents (known in the U.S. as ABAWDS). This work was originally commissioned by the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution; two of her co-authors were also in attendance: Stone Center Affiliated Scholar Zachary Parolin and Associated Researcher Ive Marx.
Salvatore Morelli, director of The GC Wealth Project, chaired a session on long-term wealth dynamics and presented his work on the rising importance of inherited wealth. Affiliated Scholar Philippe Van Kerm presented research on inequality of opportunity across the European Union. Two current Stone Center postdoctoral scholars, Zhexun Mo and Severin Rapp, were also among the presenters, as were four current and former Graduate Center, CUNY, Ph.D. students associated with the Stone Center: Nishant Yonzan, Philipp Erfurth, Morgan Richards-Melamdir, and Swapnil Landge.
Keynote lectures were delivered by Affiliated Scholars Nora Lustig and Fabian Pfeffer. Pfeffer is also director of the Munich International Stone Center for Inequality Research at Ludwig Maximilians University. An evening event, co-sponsored by POST Luxembourg and open to the public, featured Branko Milanovic discussing his book Visions of Inequality with Gornick and GC CUNY Stone Center Affiliated Scholar Francisco Ferreira, who is also director of the International Inequalities Institute.
“It was an enormously impressive conference, featuring research on many axes of inequality, spanning multiple disciplines and methodological approaches,” said Gornick. “It was immensely rewarding having so many of us from the Stone Center on the program. I look forward to the next joint conference in London in 2027.”
Others in the GC CUNY Stone Center community who were not in attendance but whose research was presented by their coauthors included current postdoctoral scholar Max Longmuir, past postdoctoral scholar Marco Ranaldi, and Affiliated Scholar David Brady.
The conference included more than 80 presentations on topics including earnings, income, and wealth inequality; intergenerational mobility; disparities by gender, race, and migration status; innovations in inequality measurement, inequality and climate change; and a wide range of policy implications. An additional 80 scholars attended. The inaugural III/LIS Economic Inequality Conference was held in London in 2023; the conference will be held biennially, alternating between London and Luxembourg.
The LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg, which serves an international community of researchers and policymakers, acquires income, wealth, employment, and demographic data from more than 60 high- and middle-income countries and harmonizes them to enable comparative research across countries and over time. The GC CUNY Stone Center houses the U.S. office of LIS.