Conference: The New Economy and Inequality: Implications for Labor Market and Anti-Poverty Policy

MDRC—a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization dedicated to learning what works to improve programs and policies that affect the poor—will organize a colloquium, "The New Economy and Inequality: Implications for Labor Market and Anti-Poverty Policy," the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. The colloquium will bring together leading economists to offer their perspective in understanding the nature of the labor market challenges and underlying causes, and cutting edge ideas for possible solutions. The event celebrates MDRC’s 40th anniversary and the contributions founding Board member Robert Solow has made to MDRC and to the field of economics.

The colloquium will be organized into three sessions. One session will feature Robert Solow, Joseph Stieglitz, and Alan Krueger, all of whom served on the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) under Presidents in different eras. They will use the CEA as the lens to discuss the economy, the labor market, inequality, and poverty. The two other sessions will be panels: one on unemployed adults and the other on low-income youth. The speakers will diagnose the problems and labor market challenges from various vantage points and offer innovative solutions for piloting, testing, and evidence building.

The colloquium will bring together 75-100 participants, including academics, policy leaders, foundation staff, and journalists. The conference will be filmed and excerpts will be available on the MDRC website.