The Work Goes On

W. Craig Riddell, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia, joins the podcast to discuss his early life in small town Ontario, his brief stint in the Canadian navy, and how he discovered a passion for labor economics.

Thomas Kochan, the George Maverick Bunker Professor Emeritus of Management at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, joins the podcast to discuss his life’s work studying unions, arbitrating labor disputes, and advocating for the restoration of a social contract that rewards the contributions of workers. Kochan and Ashenfelter also discuss the “deep economic dimensions and deep political dimensions” of the currently ongoing United Auto Workers strike.

Bob Hall on his interest in policy, and the origins of the Brookings Papers and the NBER Business Cycle Dating committee

Bob Hall, the McNeil Joint Hoover Senior Fellow and Professor of Economics at Stanford University, joins the podcast to discuss how an interest in policy inspired him to study economics and his many contributions to applied economics.

Michael Piore, the David W. Skinner Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, joins the podcast to discuss his wide-ranging expertise across different areas of labor economics, including the function of internal labor markets, the labor market implications of immigration and migration, manufacturing and product innovation, and the social forces and structures that affect economic activity.

Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn, both of whom are professors of economics at Cornell University, join the podcast to discuss what inspired them to study economics, why they like working together, and the current state of gender inequities in the U.S. labor market.