The Work Goes On

Robert McKersie, Professor of Management Emeritus at MIT's Sloan School of Management, joins the podcast to talk to Princeton’s Orley Ashenfelter about his path from being the son of an International Workers of the World (IWW) member in Paterson, NJ to becoming one of the leading global experts on labor negotiations.

Claudia Goldin, the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University, joins the podcast to talk to Princeton’s Orley Ashenfelter about growing up as an “inner city kid” in the Bronx, how her famous study on the impact of blind auditions at orchestras came to be, and her life’s work on “the single most important change in the labor force” for almost every country: women’s labor force participation.

Peter Richard Grenville Layard, Baron Layard FBA, the founding director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and co-director of the Centre’s Community Wellbeing Programme, joins the podcast to talk to Princeton’s Orley Ashenfelter about his life in public service, his advocacy on behalf of the unemployed, and his pioneering research on happiness, life satisfaction, and mental health.

Ronald Ehrenberg, the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics Emeritus at Cornell University’s ILR School, joins the podcast to talk with Princeton’s Orley Ashenfelter about the twists and turns that led to his being on the faculty at Cornell–and why industrial relations economists make great university administrators.