We are rethinking the conditions for genuine, widespread, and sustainable prosperity.
The Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative forges collaborations across fields to reframe the study of political and economic life. Hard questions are our starting point.
Learn more about the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative (BESI).
The Latest at BESI
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BESI Director Paul Pierson’s ‘Partisan Nation’ Featured in Opportunity Now
Following the November election results, Opportunity Now Silicon Valley, an editorial nonprofit that highlights free market…
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Designated Emphasis in Political Economy Student Co-Authors Paper in Leading Poli-Sci Journal
Daniel Lobo, a sociology Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley who studies race, political economy, and organizational…
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Daniel Chandler: ‘Free and Equal’
The late Gerald Cohen once wrote that there are “at most two books in the history…
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Rachel Weber: ‘Seizing the Means of Prediction’
You know something is wrong when neoliberals and Marxists start agreeing. The emerging consensus among economists…
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Diane Coyle: ‘Economics, Automated’
Can we automate economic decision making? More importantly, should we? On October 24, BESI welcomed British…
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BESI in the news
BESI Director Paul Pierson and BESI Climate lead Jonas Meckling recently offered insights in the New…
Events Hosted by BESI
December 5, 2024
4-5:30 p.m.
820 Social Sciences Building BESI is excited to host a talk by Marion Fourcade, Professor of Sociology at Berkeley, celebrating the publication of her book, “The Ordinal Society,” co-authored with Kieran Healy. Nearly every aspect of our lives is measured, ranked, and processed into discrete, standardized units of digital information. Fourcade and Healy argue that technologies of information management, […]Upcoming Events
Marion Fourcade: The Ordinal Society
Brian Judge | Democracy in Default: Finance and the Rise of Neoliberalism in America
December 10, 2024
4-5:30pm
8th floor, Social Sciences Building
Join us as Brian Judge (Policy Fellow at the Center for Human-Compatible AI, UC Berkeley) discusses his new book and its bold reappraisal of financialization and the origins of neoliberalism. Judge argues that neoliberalism springs from the product of a crisis in liberalism itself. Liberalism disavows the problem of distributive conflict, leaving it vulnerable when conflicts […]
Read More >Designated
Emphasis (DE) in
Political Economy
BESI is proud to support the Designated Emphasis (DE) in Political Economy, through which doctoral students in various disciplines can expand their training in political economy and take classes across UC Berkeley departments.