Dear Research Colleagues –
To support and showcase economic research on the causes and consequences
of racial disparities in economic outcomes, and to stimulate research on
race in all aspects of economic analysis, the NBER is launching a
Working Group on Race and Stratification in the Economy. I am delighted
that Research Associate Trevon Logan, the Hazel C. Youngberg
Distinguished Professor of Economics at The Ohio State University, has
agreed to serve as the inaugural director. The group will take a broad
approach to the economics of race, considering the factors that
contribute to racial differences in income, wealth, housing, educational
attainment, labor market outcomes, economic mobility, and a range of
other measures. It will explore economic models of discrimination and
social stratification, as well as insights on these issues from other
social sciences. It will consider the role of public policies and
political institutions in contributing to, and ameliorating, racial
differences. More broadly, it will encourage new approaches to economic
analysis of race in a variety of settings.
The group will meet twice each year, beginning with a virtual meeting in
April 2021. These gatherings will bring together researchers from many
sub-fields of economics who are studying race in the economy. A call
for papers for the first meeting will be circulated in next month.
I would also like to ask for your help in publicizing a new NBER
post-doctoral fellowship that will support a year of research by an
early-career scholar who is a member of a group that has been
under-represented historically in the economics profession, or who is
studying issues of diversity in our profession. Information on this
fellowship may be found at:
https://www.nber.org/call-applications-post-doctoral-fellowship-promote-diversity-economics-profession
I would be very grateful if you could bring this fellowship to the
attention of your students and colleagues; the application deadline is
December 10.
I hope that you will join me in supporting both of these new
initiatives. All best wishes.
Jim Poterba
Received on Tue Nov 17 2020 - 06:02:57 EST
