UChicago | Stone Center on Wealth Inequality & Mobility

5 Takeaways on America’s Boom in Billionaires

We have been persistently assured that the growth of the super rich would make things better for everyone. How’s that working so far?

How do poverty and education shape intergenerational mobility across Europe? This Friday, Michele Bavaro will compare patterns across countries to examine how socioeconomic disadvantage transmits from parents to children. Click here to join us → bit.ly/4bYHP9z

Status mobility in China: past and present Status mobility in China: past and present LSE Centre Building 2.06 and on Zoom  Speaker:Professor Steven Durlauf, Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor and Director of the Stone Center for R...

Coming up this Wednesday!

@durlauf.bsky.social of @ucstonecenter.bsky.social will discuss intergenerational mobility in China for two distinct epochs: the last 120 years of the Qing Dynasty and the last 30 years for modern China.

Register here ⬇️
events.ticketleap.com/tickets/iiil...

Advancing Joint Work on Meritocracy - Stone Center Alexander Shapoval is a scholar who resists being defined by a single discipline. Trained as a mathematician, he doesn’t limit himself to proving theorems. His work has been published across […]

New work on meritocracy is underway at the Stone Center. Visiting Scholar Alexander Shapoval joined us in Chicago to advance forthcoming projects with Steven Durlauf and Kristina Butaeva. Read more about Shapoval's Stone Center collaborations → zurl.co/ifWWZ

Sam Bowles

Sam Bowles’ recent comments at @ucstonecenter.bsky.social with @durlauf.bsky.social & @ethanbdm.bsky.social critiquing the idea that economists can’t compare utility across people sparked over 500,000 views. We spoke with Sam to get his thoughts on going viral: www.stone-econ.org/news-and-blo...

What characteristics make someone assume another person is an undocumented immigrant? René Flores studies how people perceive immigrants. What his research reveals tells an important story, especially in today’s political climate. Listen to his conversation on The Inequality Podcast → bit.ly/3Owuv2A

Join us for a special seminar by @durlauf.bsky.social of @ucstonecenter.bsky.social

He will describe intergenerational mobility in China for two epochs: the last 120 years of the Qing Dynasty and the last 30 years for modern China.

Attend in-person: buff.ly/XSqKGsp
Attend online: buff.ly/9WnHeg7

Language does more than just communicate–it also provides social meaning. This Friday, Professor Katherine Kinzler will explore how linguistic diversity can actually facilitate social understanding despite the divisions it may cause. Register here → bit.ly/4bYHP9z

10 Valuable Reads on Inequality - Stone Center Understanding inequality requires cross-disciplinary insights. The field is evolving constantly, with new research shaping how we think about economic disparities and mobility. That’s why the work we ...

What are the best modern books on inequality? 📚@durlauf.bsky.social handpicked 10 titles spanning history, philosophy, sociology, and economics. This list is sure to have something valuable for every reader. Dive in → bit.ly/4s0Ovce

Is Marx's scholarly prominence attributable to the Russian Revolution? Durlauf, Gauthier & Parent argue that it is not possible to answer this question through statistical tests of citation counts; instead, they advocate for more theoretically informed measurement. Read the research → bit.ly/4aTEZSb

New working paper on recent trends in class mobility in the US: www.nber.org/papers/w34800

I learned a lot from an amazing team of collaborators at the @ucstonecenter.bsky.social while working on this propject: Weiqi Wang, @butaevak.bsky.social, and @durlauf.bsky.social

The Stone Center’s latest work on class mobility is a must-read. Our team introduces a dynamic new framework to measure movement and class persistence across generations. Read the NBER working paper now.

Home The Census Linking Project offers researchers the ability to create longitudinal datasets using historical US Census data.

Abramitzky and Boustan's broader data collection and dissemination efforts aim to “reduce barriers and open up new research possibilities by providing customizable linked historical datasets to the broader research community.” Check out the Census Linking Project → censuslinkingproject.org

Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan are using economic history to understand immigration. On The Inequality Podcast, they examine patterns of upward mobility and preview new research on the tone of modern political speeches. Listen to their conversation with @durlauf.bsky.social → bit.ly/4txjJsL

NEW: Geoffrey T. Wodtke, Kailey White, Xiang Zhou, "Poor Neighborhoods, Bad Schools? A High-Dimensional Model of Place-Based Disparities in Academic Achievement" sociologicalscience.com/articles-v13...

How much of today's income inequality is inherited? 💰️

Most measures of intergenerational mobility focus on average outcomes. This III working paper proposes a new approach that captures differences across the entire income distribution.

🔗 buff.ly/zSL1fd1

Legislators shape social policy impacting millions–but often with incomplete knowledge. This Friday, David Brady uncovers what lawmakers actually know, what they get wrong, and why it matters for real-world policy.
Join us → bit.ly/4q0E6f4

We host public events on inequality, mobility, and wealth, such as this one, every few months. We hope to see you at our next one!

We rarely think of economics as scandalous, but maybe we should. Sam Bowles, in conversation with @durlauf.bsky.social & Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, argues that a core assumption in the field impedes moral reasoning about wealth redistribution. Watch "Why Economic Inequalities Endure"→ bit.ly/3Yj4F3B

Studying the macroeconomic effects of neighborhood-specific policies in a general equilibrium model of a city with endogenous residential sorting and educational investment, from Alessandra Fogli, Veronica Guerrieri, Mark Ponder, and Marta Prato www.nber.org/papers/w34754

The relationship between childbirth & women's careers is central to understanding gender inequality. In a new paper, Gallen et al. examine unplanned pregnancies & find that childbirth can lead to a 25% long-term earnings penalty, with even larger results for younger women.
Read now → bit.ly/4a9QCTG

Shout out to our sister centre, Stone Centre on Wealth and Income Inequality at UBC, for joining in on all the fun. Watch for more collaborations coming later this year!

Our presenters included: Samuel Bowles, Harry Brighouse, Wendy Carlin, Steven Durlauf, Felix Elwert, Francisco (Chico) Ferrreira, Joseph Fishkin, Max Greenberg, John Jackson, Thomas Lemieux, Bhash Mazumder, Jonas Mikhaeil, Gina Schouten, Michael Sobel, Naftali Weinberger,& Elizabeth Wrigley-Field

In keeping with the Stone Center’s mission, we approached these pervasive questions through an interdisciplinary, human-forward lens. We left the conference energized by the ideas exchanged and excited about what’s ahead in the field of inequality measurement.

Last month, the Stone Center convened social scientists, statisticians, and philosophers for our conference, "Integrating Normative Considerations into Inequality Measurement." Together, we examined how ideas of fairness, opportunity, and reward shape the way we measure disparity and discrimination.

What can the history of global capitalism reveal about today’s rising inequality? On this week’s Inequality Podcast, @svenbeckert.bsky.social joins @durlauf.bsky.social to trace capitalism’s rise to its expected demise.
🎧 Listen → bit.ly/45vFkaP

A propos - Trump backs down on tariffs, but 'the damage has been done and it's very persistent', expert says Speaking with FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney, Steven Durlauf, Director of the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy, say...

Catch Steven Durlauf (@durlauf.bsky.social) on @france24.com discussing the United States' rapidly evolving tariff policies and their geopolitical implications.
www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/...

Trump has tariffs. Europe has a ‘trade bazooka.' This Greenland standoff could get ugly, fast | CNN Business President Donald Trump threatened Saturday to impose new 10% tariffs on imports from several European countries. It could unravel months of progress made during trade negotiations settled after Trump's trade war last year.

🌍📉 In a @cnn.com analysis of new tariff threats, @durlauf.bsky.social of @ucstonecenter.bsky.social underscores how policy uncertainty itself can chill investment and economic activity — even before any tariffs take effect. "Uncertainty is the enemy of growth." https://har.rs/4q7kHt7

Right-to-work laws promise economic growth, but do they deliver? This Friday, Professor Tom VanHeuvelen will examine 75 years of U.S. county data to uncover which policies actually drive local economic dynamism.
Register here to join the conversation → bit.ly/3Nfaj4L

“Uncertainty is the enemy of growth.” A powerful point from @durlauf.bsky.social as he speaks to @cnn.com about the United States' declining credibility and its implications for the world economy.