An Oral History of Industrial Relations and Labor Economics
In this podcast series of conversations with leading thinkers and practitioners, we are creating an oral history of an entire generation of industrial relations experts and labor economists whose contributions to their fields have been absolutely extraordinary. Hosted by Orley Ashenfelter, the Joseph Douglas Green 1895 Professor of Economics at Princeton University.
Robert Willis, Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Michigan, joins the podcast to discuss his time as a seaman working the Washington State Ferries, his path to economics, and the origins of the Health and Retirement Study at the University of Michigan
Robert Pollak, the Hernreich Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the Washington University in St. Louis, joins the podcast to discuss his work modeling economic decisions and bargaining within families and how he and his wife, an English professor and American poetry scholar, navigated the “two career problem.”
Bruno Contini, Professor Emeritus of the University of Turin and Honorary Fellow of the Collegio Carlo Alberto, joins the podcast to discuss his childhood under fascism, his experience studying and teaching in the United States, and his expertise on Italian labor markets.
Myra Strober, Professor Emerita at the School of Education at Stanford University, joins the podcast to discuss her path as a trailblazing female labor economist and the first president of the International Association for Feminist Economics.
Ray Marshall, Professor of Economics emeritus and Rapoport Centennial chair in Economics and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, joins the podcast to discuss his childhood in a Mississippi orphanage, how the GI bill helped him become an economist, and his experience as Secretary of Labor in the Carter administration.
