Nathaniel Hendren is a professor of economics at Harvard University and a founding co-director of the Equality of Opportunity Project. His work is motivated by the question: Do markets provide opportunity? He uses a combination of theoretical and empirical analysis to document the extent of equality of opportunity, understand when and why markets may fail to provide it, quantify the impact of these market failures, and provide tools to normatively evaluate potential policy solutions. He earned a B.S. in mathematics and economics from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Expert Type: Grantee
Neil Mehrotra
Neil Mehrotra is the deputy assistant secretary for macroeconomics at the U.S. Treasury Department in the Office of Economic Policy. Previously, he was a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 2019 to 2021, an assistant professor at Brown University from 2013 to 2019, and a visiting research scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 2016 to 2017. His work has appeared in the American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, and has received press coverage from various news outlets, including the Washington Post, New York Times, and Business Insider. Mehrotra received his B.A. from Princeton University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University—all in economics.
Nathan Jensen
Nathan Jensen (2002, Yale Ph.D.) is a professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas-Austin. He was previously an associate professor in the Department of International Business at George Washington University (2014–2016) and associate professor in the Political Science Department at Washington University in St. Louis (2002–2014). He teaches courses and conducts research on government economic development strategies, firm nonmarket strategies and business-government relations, the politics of oil and natural resources, political risk in emerging markets, trade policy, and international institutions. Not all at once.
He was previously an associate professor in the Department of International Business at George Washington University (2014-2016) and associate professor in the Political Science Department at Washington University in St. Louis (2002-2014).
He teaches courses and conducts research on government economic development strategies, firm non-market strategies and business-government relations, the politics of oil and natural resources, political risk in emerging markets, trade policy, and international institutions. Not all at once.
Nathan Wilmers
Nathan Wilmers is an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. His research focuses on wage and earnings inequality, economic sociology, and the sociology of labor. In his current research, he studies how shifting relations between companies affect wage inequality and earnings growth. His research appears in Administrative Science Quarterly, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, and Social Forces, and has been covered in various media outlets. Wilmers holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Chicago and an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University.
Nancy Folbre
Nancy Folbre is Professor Emerita of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research explores the interface between political economy and feminist theory, with a particular emphasis on the value of unpaid care work. In addition to numerous articles published in academic journals, she is the editor of For Love and Money: Care Work in the U.S. (Russell Sage, 2012), and the author of Greed, Lust, and Gender: A History of Economic Ideas (Oxford, 2009), Valuing Children: Rethinking the Economics of the Family (Harvard, 2008), and The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values (New Press, 2001). She has also written widely for a popular audience, including contributions to the New York Times Economix blog, The Nation, and the American Prospect. Her current writing on the political economy of care provision can be seen on her blog, Care Talk.
Michael Reich
Michael Reich is professor of economics and chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment of the University of California, Berkeley. He served as director of IRLE from 2004 to 2015. His research publications cover numerous areas of labor economics and political economy, including the economics of racial inequality, the analysis of labor market segmentation, historical stages in U.S. labor markets and social structures of accumulation, high performance workplaces, union-management cooperation, Japanese labor-management systems, living wages, and minimum wages. Reich received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.
Michael Carr
Michael Carr is an associate professor in the Department of Economics and research fellow at the Center for Social Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His research focus is on the relationship between inequality, earnings dynamics, and public supports. His recent work focuses on the differential effects of minimum wage changes on individuals with and without public supports, and the relationship between rising inequality and trends in short-run earnings instability and long-run earnings mobility. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and his B.A. in economics from Kalamazoo College.
Michael Barr
Michael S. Barr is a former member of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth’s Research Advisory Board. He took office as the vice chair for supervision of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on July 19, 2022 for a four-year term. He also serves as a member of the Board of Governors for an unexpired term ending January 31, 2032. Prior to his appointment to the Board, Mr. Barr was the Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the Frank Murphy Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, the Roy F. and Jean Humphrey Proffitt Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, and the founder and faculty director of the University of Michigan’s Center on Finance, Law & Policy. At the University of Michigan Law School, Mr. Barr taught financial regulation and international finance and co-founded the International Transactions Clinic and the Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School, his M.Phil. in international relations as a Rhodes Scholar from Magdalen College, Oxford University, and his B.A., summa cum laude, with honors in history, from Yale University.
Meredith Kleykamp
Meredith Kleykamp is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and director of the Center for Research on Military Organization. She is also a faculty associate of the Maryland Population Research Center. Prior to joining the UMD faculty in 2010, she was an assistant professor at the University of Kansas and previously taught at the United States Military Academy (West Point). Kleykamp’s research focuses on people’s work lives, their jobs, earnings, and careers. Her work has been published in journals such as American Sociological Review, Future of Children, Social Forces, and Armed Forces and Society. She received a Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2007, and a B.A. in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin.
Mi Luo
Mi Luo is an assistant professor of economics at Emory University. Her research interests include macroeconomics, labor economics, financial economics, and behavioral economics. She received her Ph.D. in economics from New York University in 2017, her M.A. in economics from Peking University in 2011, and her B.A. in economics and English literature from Peking University in 2008.