From July, MIT Forming The Future of Work Initiative in the Department of Economy will inaugurate an important research, policy and education of the next generation of researchers, made possible by a gift from the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation. In recognition of the gift and the expansion of the priorities it supports, on July 1, the initiative will be one of the new James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on inequality and shape it the future of work. This center will be officially launched during a public event in the fall of 2025.
The Pierre Center will be directed by Daron AcemogluProfessor of the Institute and Codirectors David AutorThe Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld professor in economics, and Simon JohnsonThe Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Entrepreneurship professor. He will join a global network of 11 other centers of wealth inequality funded by Stone Foundation in the context of an effort to advance research on the causes and consequences of increasing accumulation at the top of the wealth distribution.
“This generous gift from the Stone Foundation advances our research on the pioneer economy on inequalities, technology and the future of labor. This work will create a pipeline of researchers in this critical field of study, and it will help inform public and political decision -makers, “explains Cynthia Barnhart.
Initially established in the context of MIT BluePrint Labs with a fundamental gift from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Fusting The Future of Work Initiative is a non -partisan research organization that applies to economic research to identify the innovative means of moving the labor market on a more equitable trajectory, with a central accent on the revitalization of labor market opportunities university. Based on border micro and macroeconomics, economic sociology, political economy and other disciplines, the initiative aims to answer key questions about the drop in labor market opportunities for non-university workers in recent decades. These changes in the labor market were a major engine of the growing inequality of wealth, a phenomenon which, in turn, largely reshaped our economy, our democracy and our society.
The support of the Stone Foundation will allow the new Stone Center to rely on the current research program forming The Future of Work Initiative and extend its objective to include an increasing accent on the interaction between technologies and inequalities, as well as on the role of the technological sector in the definition of future inequality.
The fundamental objectives of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on inequalities and shaping the future of work will include links between researchers doing revolutionary research on automation, AI, the intersection of labor and technology and inequalities in managing discipline management management, in particular within the Department of Economy, MIT Sloan Smool of Management, and Schwarzman College of Computing; Strengthen the pipeline of emerging researchers focused on these issues; And use research to inform and initiate a wider audience, including public students, undergraduate and graduates and decision -makers.
The support of the Stone Foundation will allow the Center to strengthen and extend its commitments to produce new research, to convene additional events to share research results, to promote connection and collaboration between researchers working on related subjects, provide new resources to the Center's research affiliates and expand public awareness to raise awareness of this important challenge. “Cathy and I are delighted to welcome the growing family of stone centers dedicated to the study of the urgent challenges of the acceleration of wealth inequalities,” said James M. Stone.
Agustín Rayo, dean of the School of Human Sciences, Arts and Social Sciences, said: “I am delighted to celebrate the creation of the Center of Pierre de James M. and Cathleen D. in the MIT economy department. Not only will he improve the advanced work of the social sciences of the MIT, but that will support interdisciplinary interactions. ”
Jonathan Gruber, president of the economy department, adds: “I could not be more enthusiastic about the support of the Stone Foundation Foundation to the implementation of the Future of Work initiative. While expanding their priorities to include other critical problems around inequalities.
“We are grateful to the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation for their generous support allowing us to study two determining challenges of our time: inequality and the future of work,” explains Acemoglu, which received the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in economics in memory of Alfred Nobins). “We hope to go beyond the exploration of the causes of inequalities and determinants of the availability of good jobs in the present and in the future, but also to develop ideas on the way society can shape both the work of the future and inequalities by its choices of institutions and technological trajectories.”
“We are incredibly lucky to join the family of stone centers around the world. Jim and Cathleen Stone are donors in the aim of and generous, and we are delighted that they are ready to support us and put it in this way, “explains Johnson. “We are impatient to work with all our colleagues, MIT and in the world, to advance understanding and practical approaches to inequality and the future of work.”
The motor adds: “This support will allow us – and many others – to concentrate our scholarship, our teaching and our awareness of the public to shape a labor market which offers opportunities, mobility and economic safety to a much wider set of people.”
