The Inequality Podcast

With the university closed for its winter recess, we are sharing a favorite recording from the Stone Center’s archives. It is a live panel discussion about Equality: The History of an Elusive Idea, a book by Dartmouth history professor Darrin McMahon. The book is an intellectual feast, spanning centuries and bursting with insight about humanity’s quest to realize one of its highest, most fraught ideals: equality.

The discussion includes the book’s author, as well as Jonathan Levy, today a historian at Sciences Po; Jenny Trinitapoli, a sociologist at UChicago; and Steven Durlauf, the Stone Center’s director and a co-host of this podcast.

This event was recorded in May 2024.

Over the past century, women’s roles in society have been transformed. It is straightforward enough to list changes in norms — around marriage, sex, jobs, and more. What is less obvious is how these updated norms have reshaped economies. Relationships have shifted between men and women, between women and their workplaces, and between the state and the family. The challenge now is evaluating the success of this new order: What has truly changed, and where is there more work to be done?

Lena Edlund is an Associate Professor of Economics at Columbia University. Her research interrogates the economics of gender and family, drawing on a range of other fields, including anthropology and evolutionary biology. In this conversation, she discusses her work on a variety of topics — from the long history of marriage, to contemporary gender gaps in wealth and voting patterns — with host Steven Durlauf.

Over the past several decades, American schools have improved significantly. The drastic gaps in achievement and funding that defined the early-to-mid 20th century have lessened, yielding an education system that, while not perfect, is far better than it was a generation or two ago. Even so, these gaps remain most pronounced for the students who start school with the fewest advantages, and research shows that efforts to close such gaps must begin early. How can schools better meet the needs of these students—and catch up with their peers throughout the developed world?

Stephen Raudenbush is the Lewis-Sebring Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Sociology, the College, and the Harris School of Public Policy. He is among the most influential sociologists living today, with contributions spanning methodological advances to landmark studies of neighborhood conditions, crime, and schools. In this conversation, he discusses his research on schools and key insights from his book, The Ambitious Elementary School, with host Geoff Wodtke.

From the Great Society to No Child Left Behind, policymakers from both parties have argued America’s schools are broken and need fixing. These failing schools, the thinking goes, exacerbate the inequality between advantaged groups and everyone else. But this approach comes with risks. For one, how might that focus on education overlook other, potentially more consequential sources of inequality? And are America’s schools really that bad?

Doug Downey is a professor of sociology at The Ohio State University. In his book, How Schools Really Matter, he argues that schools do more to reduce inequality than previously assumed. More pernicious sources of inequality, he writes, are found elsewhere — and, unfortunately, may require policy changes that are more politically inconvenient than education reform. On this episode, he discusses his work with host Geoff Wodtke.

Inequality along gender lines stubbornly persists both in the United States and abroad. In addition, measuring the relative importance of its varied causes can be difficult. But creative approaches to study design and decomposition methods have yielded new insights. Today’s guest is responsible for many of them.

Nicole Fortin is a professor at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia. She is also a director of the Stone Centre on Wealth and Income Inequality at UBC. In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, Fortin discusses her research on gender inequality in the workforce and higher education, as well as how deunionization and AI have reshaped the labor market.

A sudden loss of income can devastate a household’s financial health, just as a payment from the government can bolster it. The extent of the change in fortune — for good or ill — depends on factors such as household savings, which are, in turn, influenced by other forces, including racial inequality and economic policy. In short, understanding household finance requires grappling with myriad variables — many of which are covered in this wide-ranging conversation.

Damon Jones is an associate professor and associate director of the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. He is also a co-host of The Inequality Podcast. On this episode, he discusses his work with fellow co-host and Stone Center director Steven Durlauf, covering income shocks and their implications for racial inequality, Black economists’ contributions to the field, universal basic income, and more.

“Equal opportunity” is a powerful and popular idea. But in both theory and practice, actually equalizing opportunity may not always be the right goal. For example, a parent raising a child makes a million decisions large and small that will impact that child’s opportunities. Truly equalizing opportunity might mean standardizing many parental decisions, stripping parents of their agency and personality. Is that an ideal worth striving for? This conversation explores the idea of opportunity pluralism—the view that instead of aiming for perfectly equal opportunities, we should focus on expanding the range of paths through which people can thrive—an approach that could help disrupt the cycle in which limited options for most people keep power concentrated in the hands of a few.

Joseph Fishkin is a professor of law at UCLA. His book, Bottlenecks: A New Theory of Equal Opportunity, argues that society should focus less on equalizing opportunity and more on removing unnecessary obstacles to human flourishing. His latest book, The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy, traces the history of a once-robust thread of political thought: that constitutional democracy is incompatible with the concentration of economic power. He discusses his work on “bottlenecks” and democracy with host Steven Durlauf.

Choosing a college is one of the biggest financial decisions a young adult will make. It’s no secret that college is expensive, and that lower-income students often require more assistance to manage those high costs. What’s less well known is how access to credit—or the lack thereof—can enhance or reduce inequality.

Alexander Monge-Naranjo is a vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. His work has examined college choice, financing, and repayment decisions. He joins host Steven Durlauf to discuss his research on education financing in the United States, place-based disadvantages in Latin America, and their impact on mobility.

When it comes to inheritance, prosperity and adversity are two sides of the same coin. Inheritance can allow parents to pass economic security and opportunity to their children. But inheritance can also transmit disadvantages. The children of low-income parents may live in under-resourced neighborhoods, attend low-performing schools, receive inadequate health care, and overall be offered limited pathways for mobility. So to what extent is inequality itself inherited? And how might that process differ around the world?

Francisco “Chico” Ferreira is the Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies at the London School of Economics, where he is also Director of the International Inequalities Institute. Before that, he had a long career at the World Bank, including serving as Chief Economist for the Africa Region. In this episode, he discusses his work on rethinking how intergenerational mobility ought to be conceptualized with host Steven Durlauf, comparing how inherited inequality manifests differently in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Africa. 

Many undergraduates study the economy in depth only once: in an introductory survey course. But a traditional “Econ 101" syllabus can omit vital topics, including inequality and climate change. These subjects are often left for later courses, which most students will never take.

Wendy Carlin is a professor of economics at University College London, where she co-directs the UCL Stone Center. She oversees CORE Econ, a project that aims to refocus the undergraduate economics curriculum on “the most important problems faced by our societies,” including injustice, climate and the future of work. On this episode, Carlin discusses the CORE Econ initiative and her research with host Steven Durlauf.