The Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy is now open. Our office hours are from: 9:00am - 5:00pm, Monday - Friday. Please refer to the COVID-19 Resource Guide for all matters related to the return to campus. All visitors and vendors must fill out the Columbia University Health Screening Form. We look forward to seeing you on campus.
For the past 40 years, the United States and other advanced economies have been pursuing a free-market agenda of low taxes, deregulation, and cuts to social programs. There can no longer be any doubt that this approach has failed spectacularly; the only question is what will – and should – come next.
For those of my generation — born before or during the World War against fascism and who’ve seen the victory of the West over Soviet totalitarianism — the idea that democracy would once again be at risk is almost unthinkable. But it is, and in the very place that claims to be the bastion of democracy, the United States. Democracy is, of course, about more than having elections once every four years. It’s about systems of governance that give voice to everyone and put no one above the law.
In their recenty published article "Obscured Transparency? Compensation Benchmarking and the Biasing of Executive Pay," Prof. Di Prete and Benjamin Elbers, together with co-author Mathijs De Vaan (UC, Berkeley, find that firms select peer groups strategically in order to justify higher pay for the CEO and that upward bias in compensation peer groups is highly predictive of an increase in CEO compensation.
Professor of Economics and Political Science Alessandra Casella's research into voting systems was featured in a piece in New Scientist. Professor Casella and her co-PI were able to demonstrate how, with some alternative voting systems, minority voting decisions which support strong preferences may yield greater overall satisfaction from all voters.
Voting systems that let losing side win may increase overall happiness
Historian Mae Ngai is featured in the new podcast series of the Tenement Museum entitled How to be an American. In related audio news, Professor Ngai’s seminal history of undocumented immigration is now available via Audiobooks.com,libro.fm, and Audible.com.
Museum Announces Podcast Series: ‘How to Be American’
Sociologist David Stark has been named a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin for the 2019-20 academic year. The title of his project is “Diversity and Performance: Networks of Cognition in Markets and Teams.”
Read more about Wissenschaftskolleg and find a full list of current Fellows here