Conference

2023 College and University Fund Conference: Social and Behavioral Science as R&D

Decades of investments in science and technology R&D have led to remarkable innovations, including safe and effective vaccines and efficient clean energy solutions. These innovations hold the promise of healthier, more sustainable, and more prosperous societies. But in order to fully realize that promise, we also need social and behavioral science R&D aimed at identifying interventions, programs, and policies that motivate citizens and decision makers to act in socially beneficial ways.

As the Social Science Research Council’s Centennial year draws to a close, this convening of the member institutions in the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences will celebrate the achievements of 100 years of socially impactful social and behavioral science, and will explore new opportunities for social and behavioral science R&D to find cost-effective and scalable solutions to our most pressing societal challenges, including climate change, persistent inequality, and declining rates of scientific innovation.

Improving Global Education: Evidence, Cost-Effectiveness, and Political Economy | Centennial Lecture Series

Improving Global Education: Evidence, Cost-Effectiveness, and Political Economy Talk by: Karthik Muralidharan Tata Chancellor’s Professor of Economics, University of California, San Diego followed by an informal conversation with: Anna Harvey SSRC President Event Recording    About the Lecture Solutions to many of today’s key development challenges hinge not on creating new technologies and solutions, but in understanding why the poor do not adopt seemingly beneficial technologies that already exist. Throughout the developing world, there are countless examples of technologies that appear to be welfare enhancing but are adopted by the poor at very low rates. Examples span health, finance, …

Encouraging Technology Adoption in Agrarian Societies | Centennial Lecture Series

Encouraging Technology Adoption in Agrarian Societies Talk by: Mushfiq Mobarak Professor of Economics, Yale University followed by an informal conversation with: Anna Harvey SSRC President Event Recording  About the Lecture Solutions to many of today’s key development challenges hinge not on creating new technologies and solutions, but in understanding why the poor do not adopt seemingly beneficial technologies that already exist. Throughout the developing world, there are countless examples of technologies that appear to be welfare enhancing but are adopted by the poor at very low rates. Examples span health, finance, and agriculture sectors, and include cleaner cook-stoves, anti-malarial …

What are the Long-Run and Inter-Generational Impacts of Child Health Investments in East Africa? | Centennial Lecture Series

What are the Long-Run and Inter-Generational Impacts of Child Health Investments in East Africa? Talk by: Edward Miguel Oxfam Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley followed by an informal conversation with: Anna Harvey SSRC President Event Recording About the Lecture It has been challenging to establish how health investments in childhood affect individuals’ life trajectories, especially in low- and middle-income regions of the world, due to pervasive data limitations. This talk discusses a new project that leverages recent methodological innovations in development economics and a unique dataset tracking thousands of Kenyans over two decades (the Kenya …

2023 College and University Fund Conference: Social and Behavioral Science as R&D

Decades of investments in science and technology R&D have led to remarkable innovations, including safe and effective vaccines and efficient clean energy solutions. These innovations hold the promise of healthier, more sustainable, and more prosperous societies. But in order to fully realize that promise, we also need social and behavioral science R&D aimed at identifying interventions, programs, and policies that motivate citizens and decision makers to act in socially beneficial ways.

As the Social Science Research Council’s Centennial year draws to a close, this convening of the member institutions in the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences will celebrate the achievements of 100 years of socially impactful social and behavioral science, and will explore new opportunities for social and behavioral science R&D to find cost-effective and scalable solutions to our most pressing societal challenges, including climate change, persistent inequality, and declining rates of scientific innovation.

Discrimination in Hiring: Why Do Firms Vary So Much in Whom They Hire? | Centennial Lecture Series

Discrimination in Hiring: Why Do Firms Vary So Much in Whom They Hire? Talk by: Conrad Miller Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley followed by an informal conversation with: Anna Harvey SSRC President Event Recording About the Lecture US employers are segregated by race, which likely contributes to racial inequalities in earnings. While the composition of an employer’s workforce is shaped by powerful social and economic forces, it is not inevitable. This talk reviews recent evidence from around the world on how policy can influence the demographic composition of an employer’s workforce. About Conrad Miller Conrad Miller is …

Health Care as Social Insurance: The Role of Medicaid in Improving US Health | Centennial Lecture Series

Health Care as Social Insurance: The Role of Medicaid in Improving US Health Talk by: Laura Wherry Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Service, New York University followed by an informal conversation with: Anna Harvey SSRC President Event Recording About the Lecture Expanded access to healthcare in the United States through the nation’s public health insurance program, Medicaid, has led to meaningful–and measurable–improvements in people’s health. Insurance expansions that have targeted pregnant women, children, and adults have all had important short- and longer-term effects on health, and this talk will discuss some of those outcomes and the ways that researchers …

Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success | Centennial Lecture Series

Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success Talk by: Leah Boustan Professor of Economics, Princeton University followed by an informal conversation with: Anna Harvey SSRC President Event Recording About the Lecture Immigrants to the US today move up the economic ladder and engage in cultural assimilation at the same pace as immigrants during the Ellis Island generation. What’s more, the children of immigrants experience rapid social mobility, even if their parents hailed from poor countries. So, why are prospects for immigration reform so dim? This stalemate is more surprising in light of new evidence from the Congressional Record …

Abe Global 2023 | Hedging Against Risk – Japan in an Uncertain World: Geo-Dynamics of Northeast Asia

During the last decades of the twentieth century, there were major changes in the world economic organization as the end of the Cold War, the birth of the WTO, and the off-shoring of manufacturing to lower-wage developing countries created a highly integrated global economy dependent on complicated supply chains linking production and consumption. Similarly, sophisticated systems of data collection have distributed previously private or nationally-held data across state borders and spawned an industry around its global trafficking, resulting in security risks to individuals, businesses, and nations. A series of crises over the last several years—including the Covid pandemic, rising tensions …

Just Tech Fellowship Public Information Session 2022

The SSRC’s Just Tech program is proud to host a public information session answering your questions about the new Just Tech Fellowship, a two-year, full-time, $100,000 per year (plus supplementary funding) remote fellowship supporting a diverse community of researchers and practitioners investigating the intersection of technology and social justice. The upcoming public information session is scheduled for Friday, December 16, 12:00–1:00 p.m. ET. The session will cover details on application guidelines, eligibility requirements, and answer any questions that participants may have. Register here. The Just Tech program is funded by a broad range of philanthropic foundations committed to cultivating critical …

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