Article
Interview
Published February 8, 2022
Innovation Matters: Competition Policy for the High-Tech Economy
In his new book, "Innovation Matters: Competition Policy for the High-Technology Economy," Richard Gilbert, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at UC Berkeley, argues that regulators should be considering the effects of mergers and monopolies on innovation, rather than price. Read our Q&A with Professor Gilbert.
Learn More >Authors Meet Critics
Recap
Published December 8, 2021
Author Meets Critics: “The Banks Did It: An Anatomy of the Financial Crisis”
Watch the video of our “Authors Meet Critics” discussion focused on "The Banks Did It: An Anatomy of the Financial Crisis," by Neil Fligstein, Class of 1939 Chancellor’s Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Sociology. Professor Fligstein was joined in conversation by Adam Tooze, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History at Columbia University and author of Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World (2018) and Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy (2021). This event was co-sponsored by the Network for a New Political Economy (N2PE).
Learn More >Solidarity and Strife
Recap
Published April 13, 2021
Beyond Competition: Alternative Discovery Procedures & The Postcapitalist Public Sphere
On March 19, 2021, Matrix presented a lecture by Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. Presented as part of the SSRC-sponsored research initiative, "Solidarity and Strife: Democracies in a Time of Pandemic.”
Learn More >Matrix Lecture
Recap
Published September 29, 2020
The Code of Capital
A Matrix Distinguished Lecture by Katharina Pistor provided an overview of her book, The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality.
Learn More >Podcast
Interview
Published March 30, 2020
Matrix Podcast: Interview with Desiree Fields
In this episode, Michael Watts talks with Desiree Fields, Assistant Professor of Geography and Global Metropolitan Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Fields' research explores the financial technologies, market devices, and historical and geographic contingencies that make it possible to treat housing as a financial asset, and how this process is contested at the urban scale.
Learn More >Inequality
Article
Published October 29, 2019
Q&A: Professor Gabriel Zucman
A new book by Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez argues that the American tax system is more unfair than ever—but there are ways to fix it.
Learn More >Matrix Lecture
Recap
Published February 6, 2018
Craig Calhoun, “Cosmopolitanism and Belonging”
On January 31, 2018, Craig Calhoun, President of the Berggruen Institute and Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics, presented the UC Berkeley Social Science Matrix Distinguished Lecture, "Cosmopolitanism and Belonging."
Learn More >Research Highlights
Article
Published October 16, 2014
The Dragon of Debt
An oral history project about the national debt features interviews with top U.S. policy-makers from the past five decades.
Learn More >Workshop/Symposium
Published October 7, 2014
Behavior Measurement and Change
A Matrix seminar explored how mobile devices and other "sensors" are transforming how social scientists working in different disciplines can measure—and change—human behavior.
Learn More >Research Highlights
Article
Published October 6, 2014
Credit and Class
Economic classification tools such as credit scores directly contribute to stratification and class division, according to Berkeley sociologist Marion Fourcade.
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