NES CSDSI, NES Center for the Study of Diversity and Social Interactions and HCEO, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group at the University of Chicago hosted the event on June 10-14, 2019.
The Second International Summer School on Socioeconomic Inequality for young scientists from all over the world took place in Moscow on June 10-14, 2019. 26 postgraduate students and scientists from 13 countries and 21 universities and research centers participated. Among them those from The London School of Economics and Political Science, Universities of Bologna, Copenhagen, Luxembourg, Ljubljana and Istanbul. Russia was presented by young researchers from the Higher School of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Novosibirsk State University.
School’s program included lectures of six professors. On the first day, Steven Durlauf, Professor at the University of Chicago, Director of HCEO, talked on important social interactions and Lawrence Blume, Professor at Cornell University, hold a seminar on social networks and social cooperation .
Professor Durlauf: “I have been taking part in NES’ events since 2015. It had always been a valuable intellectual journey for me. This time, I gave a lecture on the topic of my current research – how a phenomenon of society impacts inequality. One of the concepts I use is a ‘memberships theory of inequality’ which means that peoples’ position in terms of inequality is, to a large extent, determined by the groups they belong to, for instance, – family, neighborhood, school, gender etc. I think that, due to economic changes over the past years, the interest to the issue of inequality is raising in both Russia and USA making this socioeconomic study very relevant.”
Professor Blume: “I enjoy lecturing at School very much: presenting my research topic in broad strokes, showing the most interesting problems and instruments as well as pitfalls. Moreover, I really appreciate an opportunity to communicate with students, we often have valuable discussions which are also not limited to the four School days. With many of the participants I’m staying in touch after the event.”
NES’ professors gave their presentations on the second School’s day. NES Rector Ruben Enikolopov spoke on the topic of ‘Information Inequality and Mass Media’. And NES President and Academic Director of NES CSDSI Shlomo Weber discussed ‘Linguistic Diversity and Social Inequality’.
During two following days other academics reported. Albert Park, Professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, presented China case-studies on Poverty, Inequality, and Intergenerational Mobility. And Hosny Zoabi, Professor at NES, gave a lecture on the theme ‘Can Markets be Pronatalist?’
Professor Park: “I was impressed by the diversity of participants. They represented a wide range of countries – Kazakhstan, Belarus and many other interesting places. I was delighted to meet the students and learned a lot simply from talking to them and getting acquainted with what they are working on”.
As part of the program, participants could present their studies at a poster session. They demonstrated their research summaries using posters with short texts and charts and gave comments on Q&A section.
About organizers
HCEO is a collaboration of over 500 researchers, educators and policy makers focused on human capital development and its impact on opportunity inequality. Is led by Nobel laureate James J. Heckman, the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago; Steven N. Durlauf, the Steans Professor in Educational Policy at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy; and Robert H. Dugger, the co-founder of ReadyNation and Hanover Provident Capital.
The organization focuses its efforts through six research networks that address the most pressing issues within human capital development and inequality: Early Childhood Interventions; Family Inequality; Health Inequality; Identity and Personality; Inequality: Measurement, Interpretation and Policy; and Markets.