Director, Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy Professor of Public Policy (HKS) Professor of Education and Economics (HGSE)
Research interests: Economics of skill development, education, and the labor market. The long-run influence of school accountability: impacts, mechanisms, and policy implications. The growing return to social skills in the labor market.
Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Sociology and Public Policy
We mourn the loss of Devah Pager, who served as Director of the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy and as Chair of Harvard's Joint PhD Programs in Social Policy until her death on November 2, 2018. We remember Devah with deep appreciation for the remarkable community she fostered.
Learn more about Devah's seminal work as a scholar in The New York Times obituary.
Research interests: Institutions affecting racial stratification, including education, labor markets, and the criminal justice system. Inequality, race, discrimination, punishment.
James Bryant Conant University Professor Director, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics
Research interests: Political theorist. Democratic theory, political sociology, and the history of political thought. Justice and citizenship in both ancient Athens and modern America.
Research interests: Applied economics. Intersection of race, education and government. Educational and political ramifications of acts of police violence. Effects of federal election oversight on minority turnout and political polarization.
Professor of Sociology Chair of the Department of Sociology
Research interests: Institutional causes and consequences of social inequality. Economic inequality in the European Union. Theoretical and empirical investigation of why societies have such different population health profiles, showing how institutional arrangements (welfare programs, educational expansion, labor markets, and citizenship rights) stratify health. Long-term trends in the development of political economy.
Research interests: Applies insights from cultural sociology to the study of politics in Europe and the United States, with a particular focus on populist claims-making in political discourse and popular identification with the nation in settled times.
Reischauer Institute Professor of Sociology Director, Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies
Research interests: Gender inequality, education, labor markets, economic sociology, Japanese society, and comparative sociology.
Brinton's research combines qualitative and quantitative methods to study institutional change and its effects on individual action, particularly in labor markets and in education.
Allie S. Freed Professor of Government Director of the Social Sciences, Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study
Research interests: American politics. Development of political institutions, particularly in the United States. Political economy of public bureaucracies and government regulation, particularly regulation of health and financial products.
Carpenter has recently launched a long-term project on petitioning in North American political development, examining comparisons and connections to petitioning histories in Europe and elsewhere. Together with colleagues at Harvard, Radcliffe and the Massachusetts Archives, he launched the Digital Archive of Massachusetts Antislavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions in 2015.
William A. Ackman Professor of Economics Director of the Equality of Opportunity Project
Research Interests: Public Economics. Use of “big data” to understand how we can give children from disadvantaged backgrounds better chances of succeeding. Combining empirical evidence and economic theory to help design more effective government policies, including tax policy and unemployment insurance, education, and affordable housing.
