About
The James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Centre on Wealth Concentration, Inequality, and the Economy
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Our history and mission
A $7 million donation from the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation in September 2021 established the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Centre on Wealth Concentration, Inequality, and the Economy at the UCL Department of Economics. The Centre launched on 26 May 2022 with guest speakers including James and Cathleen Stone, James Heckman, Angus Deaton, Arin Dube, and John Van Reenen.
The Stone Foundation promotes a more knowledgeable and inclusive society, with a special emphasis on the mitigation of wealth inequality. It has carried out this mission by establishing a network of Stone Centres, each specialised in the research on a specific facet of wealth inequality.
The mission of the Stone Centre at UCL is to advance research and teaching to provide a clear understanding of the causes of wealth inequality, and its economic and political consequences.
The uniqueness of the Centre is to make education and research equal partners in the venture. It pairs up CORE Econ, which is changing economics education globally to focus on the most important problems faced by our societies, with the research powerhouse of the UCL Department of Economics. It will provide a global hub for research and learning that will make wealth concentration and its impacts on innovation and sustainability central to an economics education.
The Stone Centre will accomplish its mission by:
- complementing CORE Econ’s educational mission, supporting the production of teaching and learning materials, and promoting a paradigm change in economics education. For example, the Centre supported the production of the CORE Insight Persistent racial inequality in the United States, which investigates the roots of racial inequality and why it’s become a persistent feature of the American economy
- recruiting and supporting a new cohort of young researchers interested in understanding the causes and consequences of wealth concentration and inequality, and in devising mitigating policies. Every year, the Centre hires two postdoctoral fellows who contribute their expertise
- promoting new research on material wealth concentration and inequality, leveraging the excellence in economics research of the UCL Department of Economics, and of the expertise of the Stone Centre’s Affiliates.
- funding, via competitive calls, research projects on themes of relevance to the Stone Centre’s mission. During 2023, the Centre launched a grants scheme for academic staff at the UCL Department of Economics, and a grants scheme for academic staff at universities around the world
The co-directors of the Centre are Wendy Carlin, Professor of Economics and Founding Director of CORE Econ and Imran Rasul, Professor of Economics and Co-director of the ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at IFS.
Governance
The Stone Centre at UCL produces annual reports of its activities. Find out what we've achieved, year by year:
The Stone Foundation produces executive reports of the Stone Centers' activities. Find out what other Stone Centers have achieved, year by year:
Other centres
The Stone Centre at UCL is part of a wider network of other centres established by the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation. Click on a logo below to visit the other centres’ website.
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