The Tobin Project seeks applications from doctoral students and law students undertaking work related to its initiatives in Democracy & Markets and National Security.
The deadline for applications is March 1, 2013.
Updates: Economic Inequality
The Tobin Project is pleased to announce the 2011-2012 recipients of its Democracy & Markets graduate student fellowships. With thirteen grantees in seven different disciplines, the Tobin Project’s network of aspiring scholars is growing, and the forum program is expanding to New Haven. In the fall of 2011, the Tobin Project will host monthly Graduate Student Forums in New Haven, CT for its grantees at Yale University to share their research in an interdisciplinary setting.
This winter, the Tobin Project convened top scholars to explore a question on the cutting edge of public and academic debate: Did economic inequality in the United States contribute to the financial crisis?
The Tobin Project is pleased to announce that the MacArthur Foundation has renewed its support for Tobin Project programs with a generous, multi-year grant.
In 2007, the wealthiest 1% of families controlled more than 23% of income in the U.S. for the first time since 1928.
Energized by the rich dialogue she witnessed at Tobin’s spring inequality conference, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) offered to co-host a roundtable discussion between policymakers and scholars in Washington, D.C. The meeting brought together key administration officials and Congressional leaders with Tobin-affiliated scholars to explore the potential consequences of dramatic economic inequality in the United States.
Shortly after the September release of their acclaimed book, Winner-Take-All Politics, Jacob Hacker (Yale University, Political Science) and Paul Pierson (University of California-Berkeley, Political Science) headlined a panel discussion in Cambridge co-sponsored by the Tobin Project and the Harvard Kennedy School.
In the spring of 2010, the Tobin Project issued a call for fellowship aplications from students doing work that addresses the intersection between democratic institutions and economic markets. Fellowships were awarded to fourteen students, whose projects ranged from "Policymaking at the U.S. Federal Reserve" to "Farming Families, Farm Policy, and the Business of Southern Agriculture, 1940-1980." Many of the felloship recipients came together in September for the first fall meeting of the Democracy & Markets forum.
In August, a New York Times article highlighted the potential link between income inequality and financial crises, drawing on the work of David Moss (Harvard Business School), Margaret Blair (Vanderbilt University Law School), and Richard Freeman (Harvard University, Economics), whose research in this area was developed at Tobin's
Over the past three decades, the United States has become richer, but significantly more unequal. In 2007, the most affluent 1% of American families received more than 23% of total income for the first time since 1928. While the causes of this dramatic rise in inequality are widely researched, far less is known about its potential effects on our economy, our democracy, and our society.