On 19 May Professor Raj Chetty (Harvard) delivered the 2014 IFS annual lecture on the "The Determinants of Social Mobility: New Evidence and Policy Lessons".
Where is the land of opportunity? The geography of intergenerational mobility in the U.S..
About the speaker: Raj Chetty is the Bloomberg Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Chetty's research combines empirical evidence and economic theory to help design more effective government policies. His work on tax policy, unemployment insurance, and education has been widely cited in media outlets and Congressional testimony. His current research focuses on equality of opportunity: how can we give children from disadvantaged backgrounds better chances of succeeding?
In 2008, The Economist listed Raj Chetty as one of the top eight young economists in the world and in 2010, he received the Young Labor Economist Award from the Institute for the Study of Labor Economy. In 2012, he was one of 23 fellows to receive $500,000 over the following five years from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as a recipient of one of the Foundation's 'Genius Grants' and in 2013 he became the recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded by the American Economic Association to "that American economist under the age of forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge.