New Directions
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Event Date: March 20th, 2024
12:00 PM to 1:30 PM PDT
New Directions in Greening Infrastructure
Register to join us for a panel featuring three early-career scholars from UC Berkeley presenting their research on the greening infrastructure and the green energy transition. The panel will feature Johnathan Guy, PhD Candidate in Political Science; Caylee Hong, a PhD candidate in Anthropology, and Andrew Jaeger, PhD Candidate in Sociology. The panel will be moderated by Daniel Aldana Cohen, Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley.
Learn More >Book Talk
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Event Date: April 1st, 2024
3:30pm-5:00pm
Nature-Made Economy: Cod, Capital and the Great Economization of the Ocean
Join us for a lecture by Tone Huse, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, who will discuss her book, which presents an analysis of how the ocean has been harnessed to become a space of capital investment and innovation. She discusses how living nature is wrested into the economy, but also shows how nature, in turn, resists, adapts to, or changes the economy.
Learn More >Lecture
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Event Date: April 4th, 2024
12:00pm
Céline Bessière: “The Gender of Capital”
Why do women in different social classes accumulate less wealth than men? Why do marital separations impoverish women while they do not prevent men from maintaining or increasing their wealth? Join us on April 4, 2024 at 12pm for "The Gender of Capital," a lecture by Céline Bessière, professor of sociology at Paris Dauphine University and a senior member at the Institut Universitaire de France. The lecture is presented by the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality.
Learn More >Lecture
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Event Date: April 26th, 2024
1:00pm-2:00pm Pacific
Steven J. Davis: “The Big Shift to Work from Home”
Why did the shift to work from home endure, rather than reverting to pre-pandemic levels? Join us on April 26 for a lecture by Steven J. Davis, the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Davis will consider how work-from-home rates vary by worker age, sex, education, parental status, industry and local population density, and why it is higher in the United States than other countries, as well as some implications for pay, productivity, and the pace of innovation.
Learn More >Book Talk
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Event Date: May 1st, 2024
3:30pm-5:00pm
Paul Seabright: “The Divine Economy”
Register to join us on May 1 at 3:30pm for a lecture by Paul Seabright, British Professor of Economics in the Industrial Economics Institute and Toulouse School of Economics at the University of Toulouse, France, focused on his book "The Divine Economy: How Religions Compete for Wealth, Power and People," a novel economic interpretation of how religions have become so powerful in the modern world. Moderated by Duncan MacRae, Associate Professor in the Department of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at UC Berkeley.
Learn More >Book Talk
Recap
Published January 28, 2024
Vincent Bevins – “If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution”
Watch the video (or listen to the podcast) of Vincent Bevins discussing his book, "If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution," which tells the story of the recent uprisings that sought to change the world – and what comes next. The panel was moderated by Daniel Aldana Cohen, Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley and Director of the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, or (SC)2.
Learn More >Authors Meet Critics
Recap
Published December 19, 2023
Trevor Jackson, “Impunity and Capitalism: the Afterlives of European Financial Crises, 1690-1830”
Recorded on December 5, 2023, this Authors Meet Critics panel focused on Impunity and Capitalism: the Afterlives of European Financial Crises, 1690-1830 (Cambridge University Press, 2022), by Trevor Jackson, Assistant Professor of History at UC Berkeley. Professor Jackson was joined by Anat Admati, the George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and William H. Janeway, Affiliated Member of the Economics Faculty at Cambridge University. The panel was moderated by David Singh Grewal, Professor of Law at UC Berkeley School of Law.
Learn More >Authors Meet Critics
Recap
Published December 16, 2023
Authors Meet Critics: Sharad Chari, “Gramsci at Sea”
How might an oceanic Gramsci speak to Black aquafuturism and other forms of oceanic critique? Recorded on November 28, 2023 as part of the UC Berkeley Social Science Matrix “Authors Meet Critics” series, this panel focused on Gramsci at Sea, a book by Sharad Chari, Associate Professor in Geography and Co-Director of Critical Theory at UC Berkeley. Professor Chari was joined in conversation by Leslie Salzinger, Associate Professor and Chair of Gender and Women’s Studies at UC Berkeley, and Colleen Lye, Associate Professor of English at UC Berkeley. The panel was moderated by James Vernon, Helen Fawcett Distinguished Professor of History at UC Berkeley.
Learn More >California Spotlight
Recap
Published November 13, 2023
California Spotlight: From Boom to Doom in San Francisco
Watch the video (or listen to the podcast) of our California Spotlight panel focused on the current state of commercial real estate in San Francisco — and what lies ahead. Panelists included Nicholas Bloom, from Stanford University; Ted Egan, Chief Economist of the City and County of San Francisco; and Nancy Wallace, from Berkeley Haas. Amir Kermani, from Haas School of Business and the National Bureau of Economic Research, moderated.
Learn More >Article
Interview
Published September 20, 2023
Untimely Sacrifices: An Interview with Daena Funahashi
In this interview, Nataliya Nedzhvetskaya, a Matrix Communications Scholar, spoke with Daena Funahashi, Assistant Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology, about her new book, “Untimely Sacrifices: Work and Death in Finland,” based on her ethnographic work in Finnish rehabilitation programs for occupational burnout.
Learn More >Economy
Interview
Published June 26, 2023
Balancing Property Taxes for Schools: An Interview with Quitzé Valenzuela-Stookey
Read an interview with Quitzé Valenzuela-Stookey, Assistant Professor in UC Berkeley’s Department of Economics, about his research on how reforming property taxes can reduce inequality among school districts in the United States.
Learn More >Lecture
Recap
Published April 17, 2023
The Modern American Industrial Strategy: Building a Clean Energy Economy from the Bottom Up and Middle Out
Recorded on March 22, 2023, this talk — "The Modern American Industrial Strategy: Building a Clean Energy Economy from the Bottom Up and Middle Out" — features Heather Boushey, a member of President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers and Chief Economist to the Invest in America Cabinet.
Learn More >Matrix On Point
Recap
Published April 17, 2023
Matrix on Point: Wealth and Taxes
Recorded on April 3, 2023, this panel featured Duncan Wigan from Copenhagen Business School and UC Berkeley's Gabriel Zucman discussing aspects of the global ecosystem of tax avoidance, including how corporations and individuals move across multiple legal jurisdictions to maintain wealth and avoid paying taxes. Moderated by Marion Fourcade, Director of Social Science Matrix.
Learn More >Lecture
Recap
Published April 15, 2023
Jo Guldi, “The Long Land War: The Global Struggle for Occupancy Rights”
Most nations in Asia, Latin America, and Africa experienced some form of “land reform” in the 20th century. But what is land reform? In her book, The Long Land War: The Global Struggle for Occupancy Rights, Professor Jo Guldi approaches the problem from the point of view of Britain’s disintegrating empire. She makes the case that land […]
Learn More >Panel
Recap
Published April 15, 2023
Economics and Geopolitics in US International Relations: China, Europe, and the Global South
The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have reshaped global geopolitics, trade, and security. How will these changes affect the relationship between the US and China, Europe, and the Global South? How will they impact US firms operating globally, and how might foreign leaders — and notably the Chinese leadership — respond? Recorded on […]
Learn More >Authors Meet Critics
Recap
Published March 21, 2023
To Defend This Sunrise: Black Women’s Activism and the Authoritarian Turn in Nicaragua
Recorded on March 7, 2023, this Authors Meet Critics panel focused on "To Defend This Sunrise: Black Women’s Activism and the Authoritarian Turn in Nicaragua," by Courtney Desiree Morris, Assistant Professor and Vice Chair of Research in Gender and Women’s Studies at UC Berkeley. Morris was joined in conversation by Tianna Paschel, Associate Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of African American Studies. The panel was moderated by Lok Siu, Chair of the Asian American Research Center and Professor of Ethnic Studies and Asian American/Asian Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley.
Learn More >Affiliated Centers
News
Published February 9, 2023
Economy and Society Initiative to Launch at UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley is launching a new research center dedicated to political economy, a cross-disciplinary field focused on the interplay of markets and government. Funded through a generous seed grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative (BESI) will be housed within the UC Berkeley College of Letters & Science, and will be supported by Social Science Matrix.
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