Economics for Inclusive Prosperity

Lessons from the Great Compression

contact@econfip.org (Ralph Ranalli, Suresh Naidu, Ilyana Kuziemko) — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 19:30:41 +0000

Economists have learned a lot studying the Great Depression and the Great Recession. But it’s the Great Compression era that some believe holds the most relevant and necessary lessons for today. Lasting roughly from the end of World War II to the early 1970s, it was a period marked by a dramatic narrowing of the gap between the rich and the poor. In between create a strong and historically equitable middle class. Fast forward to today, when the contrast with our record-high levels of inequality, K-shaped economy, and hollowed-out middle class couldn’t be more stark. But what exactly drove the Great Compression?

Economics for Inclusive Prosperity co-directors Ilyana Kuziemko and Suresh Naidu wanted to look past the standard explanations like strong unions and New Deal policies to a darker force: the Cold War. In their research. Kuziemko, a professor at Princeton, and Naidu, a professor at Columbia, used enhanced digitization techniques and AI to resurrect box after box old paper records and uncover never-used data. They found that the effects of government spending on military equipment, the military draft, and other Cold War-related factors made a significant contribution to the economic progress of the era. But it came at a cost, most tragically the estimated 14 million people, many of them civilians, who were killed during the proxy wars of the period. But the two economists say their research on the era may still hold lessons for today on how to get the benefits of the Great Compression without the dark side—through investments in areas such as health care, infrastructure, and green energy.

About our Guests:

Suresh Naidu is the Jack Wang and Echo Ren Professor of Economics and a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University. He’s a former Alfred P. Sloan Research fellow who’s been recognized for his groundbreaking scholarship in labor economics. Naidu previously served as a Harvard Academy Junior Scholar at Harvard University, and as an instructor in economics and political economy at the University of California, Berkeley. He holds a BMath from University of Waterloo, an MA in economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Ilyana Kuziemko is the Theodore A. Wells ’29 Professor of Economics, co-director of the Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies, and co-director of the Princeton Program in Public Finance at Princeton University. She is a former associate professor at Columbia Business School served as assistant secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where she worked primarily on the development and early implementation of the Affordable Care Act. She has been a co-editor at American Economic Journal: Applied Economics since 2015. Kuziemko earned her A.B. in economics from Harvard University, a second B.A. in mathematics from Oxford University (where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar), and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard.

Economics for Inclusive Prosperity (EfIP) is a network of academic economists from Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and other leading universities who are committed to an inclusive economy and society. EfIP members are working to transform their field around a new vision of prosperity—a vision that includes traditional economic metrics, but also expanded measures of wellbeing including access to health, to democratic participation, and to a livable planet. They’re also highlighting the important changes in economics that are already underway.

Host Ralph Ranalli is a podcaster, entrepreneur, and former journalist, who has also hosted “HKS PolicyCast,” the award-winning flagship podcast of the Harvard Kennedy School. He holds a BA in political science from UCLA and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University.

The Economics for Inclusive Prosperity Podcast is recorded at the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The show is co-produced by Ralph Ranalli and Tony Ditta.

Capitalism is in deep trouble—here's how to fix it

contact@econfip.org (Ralph Ranalli, Luigi Zingales) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:13:46 +0000

University of Chicago economist and Professor Luigi Zingales has been studying capitalism for nearly 40 years, ever since he moved to the United State from Milan, where he had become disillusioned with the crony capitalism and economic unfairness in his native Italy. But he pretty quickly discovered that the U.S. version of capitalism was no bargain either. He’s been trying to fix it ever since, through his books—which include “Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists” and “A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity”—and his work as director of the Stigler Center at the UChicago Booth School of Business, which under his leadership has focused on regulatory capture and other distortions that special interest groups impose on capitalism. Zingales earned his Ph.D. in economics from MIT, has been named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s list of Top 100 Global Thinkers, and hosts his own podcast, “Capitalisn’t,” with journalist Bethany McLean. He joins Economics for Inclusive Prosperity host Ralph Ranalli to talk about why maximizing what he calls shareholder welfare is better than maximizing shareholder returns; how the erosion of institutions and norms and the runaway accumulation of wealth have combined in a dangerous downward spiral; why anti-trust and pro-competition regulation are better tools to fix capitalism than taxation; and practical ways populist anger can be channeled into corporate governance reform.

Our Guest:

Luigi Zingales' research interests span from corporate governance to financial development, from political economy to the economic effects of culture. He co-developed the Financial Trust Index, which is designed to monitor the level of trust that Americans have toward their financial system. In addition to his position as Robert C. McCormack Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business Zingales is currently a faculty research fellow for the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow for the Center for Economic Policy Research, and a fellow of the European Governance Institute. In 2014 he was the President of the American Finance Association. He also is the co-host of the podcast Capitalisn't. In July 2015 he became the director of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago which he is refocusing on promoting and diffusing research on regulatory capture and the various distortions that special interest groups impose on capitalism. His research has earned him the 2003 Bernácer Prize for the best young European financial economist. His work has been published in the major economic and finance journals, but he has publications also in Science and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Born in Italy, Zingales received a bachelor's degree in economics summa cum laude from University Bocconi in Italy in 1987 and a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 1992.

How to make power over AI's future more democratic

contact@econfip.org (Ralph Ranalli, Maximilian Kasy) — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 16:51:05 +0000

University of Oxford economist Max Kasy is pushing back hard on the popular notion that artificial intelligence is an unstoppable technological tidal wave and we're all on the beach waiting powerlessly for it to crash over us. That view of AI is wrong — or at least, conveniently incomplete, says Kasy, who runs the Machine Learning and Economics Group at Oxford and who’s just written a new book called The Means of Prediction: How AI Really Works (and Who Benefits). The title is a play on words referencing what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels called the means of production—the industrial assets that gave their capitalist owners the power to define social classes according to their interests. Pull aside the curtain on AI development, Kasy says, and you see something similar: AI is just a tool—yes, a powerful one—but nonetheless one being shaped, as we speak, by specific choices made by specific people with specific interests. And understanding that, he says, is the first step toward doing something about it. He joins me today to talk about ways to give users and the public a say in AI’s development and deployment, why strategies like protecting individual data privacy are unlikely to help, and what things like transparency requirements, basic income, and job guarantees have to do with making AI work for everyone rather than just a handful of tech giants.

Maximilian Kasy is a professor of economics at the University of Oxford and coordinator of the Machine Learning and Economics Group in the Oxford Department of Economics. He is the author of the book The Means of Prediction: How AI Really Works (and Who Benefits). His research interests include machine learning theory, the social impact of algorithmic decision making, the political economy of AI, economic inequality, basic income and job guarantee programs, adaptive experimental design, and Statistical decision theory. He holds a Ph.D. in economics and an M.A. in statistics from the University of California at Berkeley and magister degrees in mathematics and economics from the University of Vienna. In addition to his teaching at Oxford, he has also been an assistant professor at Harvard and UCLA and a visiting professor at MIT. Among numerous other professional affiliations, he is a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

Zero-sum thinking's profound effects on economic policy

contact@econfip.org (Stefanie Stantcheva, Ralph Ranalli) — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Optimists see the glass as half full. Pessimists see it as half empty. Zero-sum thinkers believe that if someone else’s glass is full, that water was more than likely taken from their glass. Zero-sum thinking is a primary field of study for our guest on this episode of the Economics for Inclusive Prosperity podcast: Economist Stefanie Stantcheva. She’s the Nathanial Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University and the 2025 recipient of the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal, which is awarded to a young economist who has made a significant contribution to the field. Through her groundbreaking survey research at Harvard's Social Economics Lab, Stantcheva has shown that the zero-sum mindset has profound implications for politics, policy, and polarization and that it’s deeply rooted in our lived experiences, our family histories, and even the struggles of ancestors we’ve never met. She and her research partners have also found that zero-sum thinking cuts across party lines in surprising ways, and that it has strong predictive power in policymaking. In this episode, she talks to EfIP Podcast host Ralph Ranalli about why understanding the implications of zero-sum thinking is crucial to economists trying to design policies that are politically viable.

Stefanie Stantcheva is the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard and founder and the director of the Social Economics Lab. She studies the taxation of firms and individuals, as well as how people understand, perceive, and form their attitudes towards economic issues and policies. Her recent work explores people’s attitudes towards taxation, trade, immigration, climate change, and social mobility using large-scale social economics surveys and experiments. Stantcheva was the recipient of the 2025 John Bates Clark Medal, awarded each year to an American economist under the age of forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge, and the 2020 Elaine Bennett Research Prize. She has also been named a Sloan Foundation fellow, a Guggenheim fellow, and an Andrew Carnegie Fellow. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 2014 and was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows 2014-2016 before joining the Harvard Department of Economics in July 2016. She is currently co-editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Follow Stefanie Stantcheva:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanie-stantcheva-5543581a3/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/s-stantcheva.bsky.social

X: https://x.com/S_Stantcheva

Distribution matters: Why record inequality is a big macroeconomic problem

contact@econfip.org (Atif Mian, Ralph Ranalli) — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Princeton University economist Atif Mian says record wealth inequality has become a major macroeconomic problem. Born and raised in Pakistan, Mian came to the United States to study math and engineering at MIT, where he discovered economics and eventually earned his PhD. After the 2008 financial crisis, he rose to prominence with his groundbreaking research on the relationship between debt, the financial sector, wealth concentration, and the macroeconomy, which culminated in his influential book “House of Debt,” with colleague Amir Sufi. Mian says “distribution matters,” and that today’s record levels of economic inequality represent not just a moral issue, but a serious threat to the functioning and stability of the macroeconomy. Mian says the massive inequality at the top of the wealth pyramid—think of the top 1% of Americans, who now control as much wealth as the bottom 90% combined, for example—has created a system that is dangerously out of balance. His research has found that the savings rate among the bottom 50% is effectively zero, while the top 1% are able to bank 40% of their income.

All that money being removed from the economy, he says, “has to go somewhere.” So where is it going? Not where it’s needed, Mian says. Instead of channeling it into productive uses, like investments in businesses and factories, the financial sector is pushing it out as unproductive consumer debt at a rate that isn’t sustainable, he says. And in fact, U.S. consumer debt rose to a record $18.6 trillion dollars in the third quarter of last year. It’s a system that is dangerously out of balance, he says. To rebalance it will require looking at regulations, incentives, inherited wealth, and particularly taxation, especially on unproductive assets. Atif Mian joins Economics for Inclusive Prosperity Podcast host Ralph Ranalli to talk about how we got here economically, what it means if we do nothing, and ways we might be able to get to a better, more sustainable place.

Reading materials mentioned in this episode:

Academic Papers:

"The Goldilocks Fiscal Theory of Government Debt," Atif Mian, Ludwig Straub, Amir Sufi (Washington Center for Equitable Growth - June 2022)

"The Saving Glut of the Rich," Atif Mian, Ludwig Straub, Amir Sufi (National Bureau of Economic Research - April 2022)

"Indebted Demand," Atif Mian, Ludwig Straub, Amir Sufi (Bank for International Settlements, October 2021)

Books:

"House of Debt," Atif Mian, Amir Sufi (University of Chicago Press, 2014)

Key Terms in this episode

Digital Land Asset - Also known as digital real estate, such as a website or another type of online asset.

Full market - A theoretical market with negligible transaction costs (and therefore also perfect information) and one where every asset in every possible state of the world has a price. In a full market, the complete set of possible bets on future states of the world can be constructed with existing assets without friction. Also known as a complete market.

Time Series Data - Time series data consists of observations of economic variables (like GDP, inflation, or stock prices) collected at regular time intervals to identify trends, patterns, and relationships.

VARs - Vector Autoregression (VAR) models how interconnected economic variables influence each other over time, explaining dynamic relationships and aiding policy analysis.

Atif Mian is the John H. Laporte, Jr. Class of 1967 Professor of Economics, Public Policy and Finance at Princeton University. He started my academic career in 2001 after completing his bachelor’s degree in Mathematics with Computer Science and Ph.D. in Economics from MIT. Prior to joining Princeton in 2012, He taught at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Chicago Booth School of business. Mian’s research focuses on finance and macroeconomics, with a focus on understanding the human connections that help form the economy. “I see the goal of economics as helping society connect with itself in ways such that the sum is bigger than its parts,” he says. His current work focuses on the deeper implications of rising inequality for the macroeconomy—including growth, financial markets, monetary policy and fiscal policy. Mian co-founded the Center for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP) in 2007, a non-profit research institute dedicated to economic research, teaching and innovation. He is also the director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Mian co-authored the influential 2013 book, “House of Debt,” with Amir Sufi.

Welcome to Economics for Inclusive Prosperity

contact@econfip.org (Dani Rodrik, Suresh Naidu, Tony Ditta, Ralph Ranalli) — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 17:05:15 +0000

Neoliberalism and economic nationalism are the two dominant meta-models for the global economy today. Proponents call them pathways to prosperity, but both have been blamed for exacerbating ongoing climate degradation, record levels of inequality, and political instability.

Is there a way to build a more inclusive, more sustainable, and more prosperous economy for everyone?

Economists Dani Rodrik and Suresh Naidu say their profession needs to adopt a more holistic view of prosperity, one that includes traditional metrics but also expanded measures of wellbeing like the ability to live a healthy life, to participate in democracy, and to inhabit a liveable planet. They’re two of the founding members of Economics for Inclusive Prosperity, a network of academic economists from Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and other leading universities working to transform their field around this more expansive vision.

In the inaugural episode of the Economics for Inclusive Prosperity Podcast, Rodrik, a professor of political economy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Naidu, a professor of economics and international and public affairs at Columbia University, join host Ralph Ranalli to talk about the groups’ efforts to foster new thinking and policy ideas among their peers. They also highlight significant changes in approaches and research that are already underway, particularly among a new generation of economists using big data and empirical tools to challenge old orthodoxies.