The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Economics has launched a new center dedicated to advancing research on inequality and shaping the future of work. The James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Inequality and Shaping the Future of Work will focus on studying the decline in labor market opportunities for non-college workers and its impact on wealth inequality.
MIT Department of Economics Launches New Center on Inequality and Shaping the Future of Work
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Economics has launched a new center dedicated to advancing research on inequality and shaping the future of work. The James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Inequality and Shaping the Future of Work will be led by Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu, Daniel Rubinfeld Professor David Autor, and Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship Simon Johnson.
Understanding the Challenges of Inequality and Technological Change
The new center will focus on studying the decline in labor market opportunities for non-college workers in recent decades and the interplay between work, technologies, and wealth inequality. These changes have been a major driver of growing wealth inequality, which has, in turn, broadly reshaped our economy, democracy, and society.
Wealth inequality refers to the unequal distribution of wealth among individuals, households, and communities.
According to a report by Oxfam, in 2020, the world's richest 1% held more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people combined.
The top 10% of earners in the United States hold approximately 77% of the country's wealth, while the bottom 50% hold less than 1%.
Building Connections Across Disciplines
The Stone Center will foster connections between scholars doing pathbreaking research on automation, AI, the intersection of work and technology, and wealth inequality across disciplines. This includes within the Department of Economics, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing.
Strengthening the Pipeline of Emerging Scholars
The center will strengthen the pipeline of emerging scholars focused on these issues by providing new resources for research affiliates and expanding public outreach to raise awareness of this important emerging challenge.
Informing Policy and Enhancing Education
The Stone Center will use research to inform and engage a wider audience, including policymakers, undergraduate and graduate students, and the public. This work will create a pipeline of scholars in critical areas of study and help shape new insights and solutions to complex social challenges.
‘We are grateful to the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation for their generous support enabling us to study two defining challenges of our age: inequality and the future of work,’ says Acemoglu, who was awarded the ‘Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel’ in 2024. ‘We hope to go beyond exploring the causes of inequality and the determinants of the availability of good jobs in the present and in the future, but also develop ideas about how society can shape both the work of the future and inequality by its choices of institutions and technological trajectories.’
Daron Acemoglu is a Turkish-born British economist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He is known for his work on economic development, growth, and institutions.
Acemoglu's research focuses on understanding why some countries are rich while others remain poor.
He has written several books, including 'Why Nations Fail', which explores the relationship between institutions and economic success.
The Stone Foundation‘s support will allow the center to build on the ‘Shaping the Future of Work Initiative’ ‘s ongoing research agenda and extend its focus to include a growing emphasis on the interplay between technologies and inequality, as well as the technology sector’s role in defining future inequality.
