The Core Seminar, "Problems in Social Policy"

All students in the joint degree program are required to take the core seminar, taught jointly by faculty in Economics, Politics, Sociology and Psychology. The subject matter will evolve over the years and reflect the particular interests of the instructors, but the questions that will undoubtedly define the arc of the course involve the causes, consequences and policy remedies for inequality in the U.S., Western Europe, and to a more limited - but no less important - extent, the high growth countries of the developing world (India, Mexico, China, etc.).

The core seminar is divided into four segments, corresponding to the four disciplines represented. The segments, which are described in detail in the course syllabus, provide a brief overview of the kinds of contributions that each discipline has made to the study of inequality, and then hones in on a set of important problems in each field. We begin with economics, where the focus is largely on human capital, educational attainment, and labor market dynamics.

The second segment draws on American and comparative politics, dwelling mainly on preferences for redistribution, the study of welfare states, inequality in political participation, the role of unions and interest groups in setting the terms of debate and the distribution of power in states that fundamentally impacts the nature of inequality.

The beginning of the Spring semester brings the third segment, in which sociological theories of inequality will be central. Studies of labor market institutions, educational systems, discrimination and racial inequality, family structure, and neighborhood effects will be critical here.

Finally, the last segment is lead by social psychologists, decision theorists and behavioral economists concerned with the micro building blocks of inequality, including the study of decision making under conditions of uncertainty, prejudice, and inter-group conflict. This will take us to the end of the academic year.

Clearly, students reading within their home field will already be familiar with the perspectives and methods under discussion; for them, the value of the reading/discussion will lie in digging more deeply into the particulars of the research in question and thinking about where the field needs to go to extend our understanding of the problem. For students reading outside their home field - which by definition will be in three of the four mini-segments - the task will be both to understand the methods and theories at work in a more general way as well as the specifics of the research in question.

Core course requirements

To facilitate the thought process and insure engagement throughout the year, students will be expected to read carefully and critically and contribute weekly "reflections" of no more than one page single spaced, which should be delivered via email to the instructor and copied to your student colleagues no later than noon of the day preceding the course meeting. The purpose of the reflection papers is to get a head start on what you see as the defining issues, the complexities of analysis, the problems unsolved, or the further applications you could imagine for the material at hand. You may pick and choose among the readings or react to them as an ensemble. Either way, you should devote considerable attention to these reflection papers as they will be woven into the discussion by the instructors throughout the year.

The most important assignment of the core seminar, however, is an original research paper, prepared under the guidance of the faculty members from your discipline who are instructors in the course. This paper will "double count," meeting requirements for original papers in your home department as well as JDP. Accordingly, its subject matter should be related to questions of inequality that you and your advisors regard as important and worthy of publication in a top tier journal in your discipline.

Instructors will announce the specific deadlines every year, but roughly speaking a topic outline will be due for this paper within the first six weeks of the core seminar. A literature review will be due by the end of the first semester (that is, mid January). A decent draft of the paper will be due in reading week of the second semester (roughly speaking, the end of April). You will be expected to revise the paper over the summer and submit a polished draft, responsive to comments, by September 1.

This original paper will become the object of more intensive review and revision in the workshop in social policy that follows in the Fall of the third year.