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The Inequality Podcast

Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility

Presented by the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy, The Inequality Podcast brings together scholars across disciplines to discuss the causes and consequences of inequality and strategies to promote economic mobility. This podcast is hosted by sociologist Geoff Wodtke and economists Steven Durlauf and Damon Jones.

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#62
August 24 · 52 min
Beatrice Cherrier on the Evolution of Economic Thought
It is easy to regard economic ideas as something akin to laws of nature. In reality, every economic idea has a human history, a process through which it was devised, debated, and refined by economists — a group as subject to human nature as any other. Our guest today has spent a career studying how economic thought has evolved, including whether inequality within the field has affected economic thinking about inequality itself. Beatrice Cherrier is a historian at École Polytechnique in Paris. She is one of the world’s leading historians of economic thought. In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, she discusses the history of economic thinking about inequality, how economics has moved away from qualitative thinking, and her research on what shapes monetary policy.
#61
August 10 · 51 min
Lane Kenworthy on What Matters More Than Inequality Reduction
Over the past two decades, addressing income and wealth inequality has become a bigger and bigger priority for policymakers and researchers across the world. But have advocates focused on it too much? Our guest today argues that societies should de-emphasize inequality reduction and instead pursue other policies that would lift living standards. Lane Kenworthy is a sociologist at the University of California San Diego. He is the author of multiple books, including Is Inequality The Problem? In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, he discusses why he thinks inequality reduction should become less of a priority, what policymakers should pursue instead, and what American debates over so-called “socialist” politicians miss about actual democratic socialism.
#60
July 27 · 57 min
David Brady on the Politics of Poverty
Americans have long been susceptible to certain myths about poverty, including that individuals become poor because of choices, as opposed to larger societal forces. This way of thinking has consequences, particularly at the level of policymaking. Our guest today has done foundational work challenging these persistent myths, as well as diagnosing what it takes for our political institutions to meaningfully address poverty. David Brady is a professor of public policy at USC. His work is essential for understanding poverty, its causes, and how societies might address both through the political process. In this conversation with host Geoff Wodtke, he discusses interviewing state legislators about their handling of poverty, what it would take for the American political system to make more progress on the issue, and debating which is the more effective means for creating social change: institutions or protest.
#59
July 13 · 48 min
Jahel Queralt on the Costs of Moralizing Success and Failure
Critics of meritocracy often emphasize the ways merit-based thinking can justify grossly unequal outcomes, such as wide gaps in pay between rank-and-file workers and CEOs. Indeed, to some meritocratic thinkers, a sought-after executive receiving an eight-figure salary is simply a skilled worker getting their just deserts. But our guest today advocates for a different conception of meritocracy, one that treats merit as a principle for structuring opportunities and institutions, rather than as a moral defense of unequal outcomes. Jahel Queralt is a professor of law at Pompeu Fabra University. A leading political theorist, she has written extensively about meritocracy, liberal egalitarianism, and more. In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, she discusses her vision of a just meritocracy, the importance of political liberties, and the economic rights of the global poor.
#58
June 29 · 54 min
Thomas Mulligan on Acting Meritocratically
It is a simple but persuasive idea: In a world of scarcity, rewards like jobs and pay should be distributed based on ability and effort, not birthright, connections, ways of living, wealth, and so on. Meritocracy, framed this way, may sound utterly uncontroversial. Yet the idea has its fair share of critics, who argue that “merit” tends to accrue to those lucky enough to have well-heeled, well-connected parents. In response to such criticisms, our guest today offers a just conception of meritocracy, having written some of the essential texts on the subject. Thomas Mulligan is a visiting scholar at Georgetown’s Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics and a researcher at the RAND Corporation. He is also the author of Justice and the Meritocratic State, a modern classic within the meritocracy literature. In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, he discusses common critiques of meritocracy, how the idea relates to debates over affirmative action and reparations, and what policy solutions could make societies more meritocratic.
#57
June 15 · 49 min
Philip Kitcher on the Erosion of Ethics in Policymaking
Beginning in the 1980s, a new political order led policymakers to prize economic efficiency, often at the expense of public goods. What has followed, our guest argues, has been a withdrawal of ethics from policy making, as well as an “erosion of kindness.” Our guest proposes a different ethos, one that hearkens back to a time before the pursuit of efficiency blinded us to other essential human values. Philip Kitcher is the John Dewey Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including several that are integral to understanding contemporary inequality. In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, he discusses the philosophical underpinnings of the market-driven worldview that has come to dominate policymaking, what that approach has wrought, and why charting a different path requires rethinking what education is for.
#56
June 1 · 52 min
Michelle Jackson on the Overworked Labor Force
From Adam Smith’s pin factory to Henry Ford’s assembly line, specialization has long connoted a modern, efficient economy. Within this paradigm, workers’ jobs become repetitive but, ultimately, entail a narrow scope of tasks. So why, in today’s ultra-optimized economy, are so many supposedly specialized workers juggling so many wide and varied responsibilities? Michelle Jackson is a sociologist at Stanford. In her latest book, The Division of Rationalized Labor, she chronicles how today’s workers became saddled with so many tasks. Her previous book, Manifesto for a Dream, made the scientific case for more radical policy interventions to address inequality. In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, she discusses how scopes of work ballooned across the economy, how police officers became unlikely symbols of that change, and why reducing inequality may require rethinking the role of the family.
#55
May 18 · 35 min
Tom VanHeuvelen on the Future of Organized Labor
It is no secret that the power of American unions has waned since the middle of the 20th century. Their downturn has had far-reaching consequences: As the threat of organized labor recedes, employers may feel less pressure to offer concessions. Our guest today has done significant work studying the decline of the labor movement and its repercussions for workers, unionized or not. Few are better positioned to reflect on how we got here, how it has changed American society, and what lies ahead. Tom VanHeuvelen is a sociologist at the University of Minnesota. His research examines the long-term causes and consequences of deunionization and other drivers of inequality. In this conversation with host Geoff Wodtke, he discusses the often-overlooked benefits of unions, the rise of “right-to-work” laws, and what the future of unionization may look like.
#54
May 4 · 56 min
Leslie McCall on Intersectional Inequality, AI, and Meritocracy
Inequality is often framed in terms of a binary: rich and poor, haves and have nots. But inequality between groups — based on gender, class, race, and so on — must be understood alongside inequalities within particular groups, at particular intersections of identity. Our guest today has contributed foundational work to this intellectual framework. She has also enriched our understanding of how Americans feel about their economic prospects in an era of high inequality. Leslie McCall is a professor of sociology and political science at the CUNY Graduate Center and associate director of the Stone Center there. She is the author of Complex Inequality: Gender, Class, and Race in the New Economy, a landmark study of wage inequality, as well as her most recent book, The Undeserving Rich: American Beliefs About Inequality, Opportunity, and Redistribution, which chronicles Americans’ shifting attitudes about the economy. In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, she discusses her work examining inequality and Americans’ beliefs about it, as well as what her findings might tell us about meritocracy and the effects of artificial intelligence on the labor market.
#53
April 20 · 48 min
Joe Soss on Welfare Reform and ‘Legal Plunder’
To a large degree, the levels of inequality present in the United States intensified in the 1980s and 1990s. Starting in those decades, the poorest Americans began facing new threats, such as the “reforms” made to social welfare programs and the rise of mass incarceration. Our guest today has spent 30 years studying how politics and policy have shaped the lives of America’s poor, and his new book explores a lesser-known trend, one that persists today: the massive revenues the legal system extracts from the poor, a phenomenon he calls “legal plunder.” Joe Soss is the Cowles Chair for the Study of Public Service at the University of Minnesota. His most recent book (with sociologist Joshua Page) is Legal Plunder: The Predatory Dimensions of Criminal Justice. In this conversation with host Geoff Wodtke, Soss discusses the mechanisms through which the legal system strips resources from the poor, as well as how poverty governance became defined by “neoliberal paternalism,” which he chronicled in his first book, Disciplining the Poor.
#52
April 6 · 54 min
Mario Small on Networks and Urban Poverty
We all belong to networks. Whether in the boardroom or the barroom, human beings use networks to try to achieve their goals. But not all networks are created equal, and so access to them (or the lack thereof) can drive inequality. At the same time, the networks with which we identify most — such as friends, family and colleagues — are often not the connections that prove most decisive. Rather, as our guest today has argued, it is weak ties that frequently leave the strongest influence on the course of our lives. Mario Small is a sociologist at Columbia University. He is the author of Unanticipated Gains: Origins of Network Inequality in Everyday Life, and his work has explored how networks shape both mobility and inequality. In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, Small discusses core insights from his 20-plus years studying urban inequality, advice for blending quantitative and qualitative methods, and the surprisingly potent networks that emerge around New York City daycare centers.
#51
March 23 · 51 min
Kim Bowes on Ancient Romans’ Economic Lives
Among ancient civilizations, Rome inspires a special kind of fascination in the Western World. While the parallels between society now versus then are often overstated, we nevertheless can better understand ourselves by endeavoring to understand those who lived 2,000 years ago. Our guest’s work explores one facet of Roman life that reverberates in the way we live today: the surprisingly sophisticated financial affairs of average Romans. Kim Bowes is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her latest book is Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent. The book draws on her own archeological work to chronicle Romans’ struggles with work, affordability, credit markets, and more. In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, she discusses the ways consumerism defined plebeian life, the challenges of collecting data about the ancient world, and what the skeletons of Roman farmers can tell us about the economic lives they lived.
#50
March 9 · 44 min
Joseph Stiglitz on Pioneering the Economics of Inequality
Across three seasons of The Inequality Podcast, thinkers from a range of disciplines have discussed how their work helps us understand inequality. Given the breadth and depth of the research featured, it is difficult to believe that the subject was once an afterthought in economics. For our 50th episode, we present a scholar whose groundbreaking ideas have proven integral to the study of inequality for over a half century, anticipating many current arguments and representing the foundations for others. Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate and a professor of economics at Columbia University. He is the author of many books, the most recent of which is The Origins of Inequality, and Policies to Contain It. In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, he discusses his 60-year career studying the economics of inequality, including his influential studies of labor markets, his tenure working in the Clinton White House, and his thoughts on how AI might shape inequality.
#49
February 23 · 44 min
René Flores on Immigration Enforcement and ‘Social Illegality’
As part of the current immigration crackdown, federal agents have turned to profiling, making stops on the basis of occupation or perceived ethnicity. In a system where confirming legal status can take days or weeks, agents are finding shortcuts in stereotypes. Aside from the dubious constitutionality of these stops, the assumptions behind these tactics raise questions: What makes someone look illegal? According to whom? And how do these perceptions emerge? René Flores is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Chicago. His work investigates how social boundaries form around immigrants and racial minorities and how these divisions contribute to inequality. In this conversation with host Geoff Wodtke, Flores discusses the complicated views Americans express about immigrants in surveys, how those views affect immigrants and non-immigrants alike, and how a perception of “social illegality” can extend beyond actual documentation status.
#48
February 9 · 49 min
Immigration, Assimilation, and Intergenerational Mobility, Featuring Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan
Immigration has once again taken center stage in the United States. While the federal government’s crackdown continues to unfold, the ideas driving immigration politics are far from new. Concerns about economic competition and cultural assimilation would have been familiar to Americans a century ago. Yet research from our guests demonstrates that many of the commonly held beliefs about immigrants are, in fact, largely myths. Economists Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan are the authors of Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success. They are responsible for groundbreaking work in the study of economic history, finding inventive ways to harness both qualitative and quantitative methods. In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, they discuss misconceptions about the economics of immigration, the persistence of upward mobility among the children of immigrants, and what those children’s names might tell us about cultural assimilation. This conversation was recorded in October.
#47
January 26 · 51 min
Sven Beckert on How Capitalism Won
There is an old cliche about imagining the end of capitalism. But explaining the rise of capitalism presents its own challenges. Human beings have congregated in marketplaces for millennia. When did simple barter and trade tip into what we call capitalism? And why did that particular system conquer the world? Answering such questions requires an interdisciplinary approach, and perhaps there is no better starting place than with experts in the two fields that have the most skin in this game: economists, who study capitalism’s inner workings, and historians, who chronicle how humanity got here. Sven Beckert is a professor of history at Harvard. His new book is Capitalism, and it chronicles how human history was transformed by this relatively recent advent. In this conversation with host (and economist) Steven Durlauf, Beckert discusses slavery’s role in the development of capitalism, why it took hold across the globe, and what, if anything, may spell its demise.
#46
January 12 · 53 min
Jonathan Levy on What Really Makes Up ‘The Economy’
Economics as a discipline holds particular authority among the social sciences. The field owes its heft in part to the sophistication of its methods and models, both of which seem to grow ever more intricate. But what if in its quest for more complex techniques, mainstream economics is overlooking basic yet essential questions: For one, what is the economy? Jonathan Levy is a historian at Sciences Po. His latest book is The Real Economy, which critiques contemporary economics and draws on historical analysis to posit a new conception of “the economy.” He is also the author of Ages of American Capitalism, which chronicles the evolution of the U.S. economy. In this conversation, he discusses his work, what Keynes learned from Freud, and what economists can learn from historians with host Steven Durlauf.
#45
Dec 29, 2025 · 57 min
A New History of Equality, Featuring Darrin McMahon, Jonathan Levy, Jenny Trinitapoli, and Steven Durlauf
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.
#44
Dec 15, 2025 · 41 min
Lena Edlund on Women, Wealth, and Opportunity
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.
#43
Dec 1, 2025 · 44 min
Stephen Raudenbush on Creating ‘Ambitious’ Schools
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.

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