
Who we are
FACULTY
Over 70 Harvard faculty members from across the university come together in the Inequality & Social Policy program.
Meet the faculty ▶
THE PhD SCHOLARS
Each year 10-12 doctoral fellows are selected from Harvard's PhD programs in the social sciences. Harvard students may apply in late spring of their G-1 or G-2 year.
Meet the PhD Scholars ▶
PhD ALUMNI
Over 200 PhD social scientists began as Harvard Inequality & Social Policy doctoral fellows.
See where they are now ▶
STONE SENIOR SCHOLARS
Twelve senior scholars from other universities participate as national faculty affiliates.
Meet the Stone Senior Scholars ▶
Alumni spotlight
Peter Bucchianeri: APSA 2019 Best Dissertation Award in Urban Politics
Alexander Hertel-Fernandez: APSA 2019 Robert A. Dahl and Gladys M. Kammerer Awards
Bernard L. Fraga: APSA 2019 Best Book Award in Race, Ethnicity, and Political Behavior
Leah Platt Boustan: 2019 IZA Young Labor Economist Award
Alexandra Roulet: French Economic Association 2019 Best Book Prize
Ann Owens: William T. Grant Scholar 2019
Will S. Dobbie: 2019 Sloan Research Fellow
David J. Deming: APPAM 2018 David N. Kershaw Award
Andrew Garin: Upjohn Institute 2018 Dissertation Award
Laura Tach: ASA Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility 2018 William Julius Wilson Early Career Award
Alexandra Roulet: Upjohn Institute 2017 Dissertation Award
Alexander Hertel-Fernandez: APSA 2017 Harold D. Laswell Dissertation Prize
Simon Jäger: Upjohn Institute 2016 Dissertation Award
James Feigenbaum: Economic History Association 2016 Allan Nevins Dissertation Prize
Charlotte Cavaillé: APSA Mancur Olson Best Dissertation Award in Political Economy 2016
Seminar and events
HIRE A HARVARD PHD
The Inequality & Social Policy program is multidisciplinary initiative that brings together Harvard PhD candidates across the social sciences and policy disciplines. This includes PhD candidates from economics, government, sociology, health policy, public policy, and social policy.
Meet the job market candidates ►
FOLLOW US
Research spotlight: PhD Scholars
- Do Police Brutality Stories Reduce 911 Calls? Reassessing an Important Criminological Finding.” American Sociological Review 85 (1): 176-183. Abstract. 2020. “
- Gender Bias in Rumors among Professionals: An Identity-Based Interpretation.” The Review of Economics and Statistics. AbstractForthcoming. “
- Thick Red Tape and the Thin Blue Line: A Field Study on Reducing Administrative Burden in Police Recruitment.” Public Administration Review 80: 92-103. Abstract. 2020. “
- The Contribution of National Income Inequality to Regional Economic Divergence.” Social Forces 98 (2): 622-648. Abstract. 2019. “
- Antitrust Enforcement as Federal Policy to Reduce Regional Economic Disparities.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 685 (1): 156-171. Abstract. 2019. “
- The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor.” American Sociological Review 84 (4): 609-633. Abstract. 2019. “
- Concealment and Constraint: Child Protective Services Fears and Poor Mothers’ Institutional Engagement.” Social Forces 97 (4): 1785–1810. Abstract. 2019. “
- Punishing and toxic neighborhood environments independently predict the intergenerational social mobility of black and white children.” PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116 (16): 7772-7777. Abstract. 2019. “
- Do Tax Cuts Produce more Einsteins? The Impacts of Financial Incentives Versus Exposure to Innovation on the Supply of Inventors.” Journal of the European Economic Association 17 (3): 651–677. Abstract. 2019. “
- Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 134 (2): 647–713. Abstract. 2019. “
- The Organization of Neglect: Limited Liability Companies and Housing Disinvestment.” American Sociological Review 84 (1): 142-170. Abstract. 2019. “
- Do Inheritance Customs Affect Political and Social Inequality?” American Journal of Political Science 63 (4): 758-773. Abstract. 2019. “
- Productivity and Pay: Is the Link Broken?” Facing Up to Low Productivity Growth. Peterson Institute for International Economics. Abstract. 2019. “
- We can help, but there’s a catch: Nonprofit organizations and access to government-funded resources among the poor.” Journal of Organizational Ethnography 8 (1): 109-128. Abstract. 2019. “
LATEST NEWS AND COMMENTARY
LATEST ACADEMIC ARTICLES BY OUR DOCTORAL FELLOWS
WHAT TO READ NEXT: LATEST BOOKS
Harvard symposium honors William Julius Wilson's five decades of work on race, class, and inequality
September 12, 2019
Harvard Gazette | To follow the career of William Julius Wilson is to trace the evolution of the national conversation on race and class in American over the past half century.
That was the overarching theme of a three-day symposium celebrating the career of the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor Emeritus.
Professor Wilson has been an extraordinary influence to the many Harvard PhD students he advised since joining the faculty in 1996. He was one of the four founders—together with colleagues Katherine Newman, David Ellwood, and Christopher Jencks—of the Inequality & Social Policy program in 1998, and he has taught many of the nearly 300 PhD students who have come through the program since.
View symposium program + video ►

Race and Networks in the Job Search Process
American Sociological Review
David S. Pedulla and Devah Pager
Online First: November 7, 2019
Devah Pager was the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Sociology at Harvard University and Director of the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy until her death in November 2018. David Pedulla is Associate Professor of Sociology at Stanford University.