MIT Department of Economics to launch James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Inequality and Shaping the Future of Work

CAMBRIDGE, MA – The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Economics is set to inaugurate a significant new chapter in research and policy with the establishment of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Inequality and Shaping the Future of Work. This pioneering center, made possible by a generous gift from the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation, will officially commence operations in July, with a public launch event slated for Fall 2025.

The Stone Center marks an evolution of MIT’s existing Shaping the Future of Work Initiative, expanding its critical priorities. It joins a distinguished global network of 11 other wealth inequality centers supported by the Stone Foundation, united in their mission to advance understanding of the causes and consequences of growing wealth accumulation at the top of the distribution.

The new center will be steered by Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu, alongside co-directors David Autor, the Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor in Economics, and Simon Johnson, the Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Professor of Entrepreneurship. This leadership triumvirate brings profound expertise to the center’s ambitious agenda.

Provost Cynthia Barnhart emphasized the profound impact of this new endeavor, stating, “This generous gift from the Stone Foundation advances our pioneering economics research on inequality, technology, and the future of the workforce. This work will create a pipeline of scholars in this critical area of study, and it will help to inform the public and policymakers.”

Building upon the foundational work of the Shaping the Future of Work Initiative – originally part of MIT Blueprint Labs with support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation – the Stone Center will continue its nonpartisan research. Its core focus remains identifying innovative economic approaches to foster a more equitable labor market, particularly for workers without college education, who have faced declining opportunities in recent decades. This phenomenon is a significant driver of the widening wealth inequality that reshapes our economy, democracy, and society.

A key extension of the center’s focus, enabled by the Stone Foundation’s support, will be a deeper exploration into the intricate interplay between emerging technologies, including automation and artificial intelligence (AI), and their role in defining future inequality. This includes analyzing the technology sector’s impact on wealth distribution and job prospects.

The core objectives of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center include fostering interdisciplinary connections among scholars across the Department of Economics, MIT Sloan School of Management, and the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing. It aims to strengthen the pipeline of emerging scholars dedicated to these issues and to leverage its research to inform and engage a wider audience, from students to policymakers.

James M. Stone expressed his enthusiasm, stating, “Cathy and I are thrilled to welcome MIT to the growing family of Stone Centers dedicated to studying the urgent challenges of accelerating wealth inequality.” Agustin Rayo, dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, added, “Not only will it enhance the cutting-edge work of MIT’s social scientists, but it will support cross-disciplinary interactions that will enable new insights and solutions to complex social challenges.”

Jonathan Gruber, chair of the Department of Economics, highlighted the timeliness of the initiative. “The initiative’s leaders have been far ahead of the curve in anticipating the rapid changes that technological forces are bringing to the labor market, and their influential studies have helped us understand the potential effects of AI and other technologies on U.S. workers.”

Daron Acemoglu, who was awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 2024 (with co-laureates Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson), articulated the center’s overarching vision: “We hope to go beyond exploring the causes of inequality and the determinants of the availability of good jobs in the present and in the future, but also develop ideas about how society can shape both the work of the future and inequality by its choices of institutions and technological trajectories.”

This initiative represents a pivotal step in understanding and addressing some of the most pressing economic and social challenges of our time, ensuring that the advancements in technology and economic growth lead to broader opportunities and shared prosperity.