About the Lecture
What if everything we understood about gun violence was wrong? In 2007, economist Jens Ludwig moved to the South Side of Chicago to research two big questions: Why does gun violence happen, and is there anything we can do about it? Almost two decades later, the answers aren’t what he expected. This seminar (based on a forthcoming book) describes how and why everyone’s conventional wisdom about gun violence is at best incomplete, how behavioral economics gives us a better way to understand the problem, and how a sustained partnership between the University of Chicago Crime Lab and the city of Chicago have helped identify and scale new solutions.

About the Speaker
Jens Ludwig is the Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research working group on the economics of crime, and Pritzker Director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, which he helped found 17 years ago as an R&D partner for the public sector to solve social problems. Crime Lab projects have led to changes in policy in cities around the country, been published in leading scientific outlets like the Quarterly Journal of Economics and American Economic Review, and featured in national news outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post and PBS News Hour. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and serves on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Law and Justice.
About the Lecture Series
For more than 100 years, the Social Science Research Council has mobilized policy-relevant social and behavioral science aimed at finding actionable solutions to pressing societal challenges. In this year’s virtual lecture series, we’ll hear about successful research collaborations between federal, state, and local government agencies and faculty on the 86 campuses in the Social Science Research Council’s College and University Fund for the Social Sciences institutional membership consortium. These collaborations, which have led to improved outcomes for communities, give us a blueprint for delivering on the promise of government innovation.
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