Ideas Made to Matter
The imbalance of PhDs’ socioeconomic backgrounds
Economics PhDs are more likely to have highly educated parents and come from a more socioeconomically advantaged background — and that’s a problem.
Jun 14, 2022
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Anna Stansbury
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Anna Stansbury is the Class of 1948 Career Development Assistant Professor and an Assistant Professor of Work and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and is in the core faculty of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research. She is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Stansbury’s research focuses on topics in labor and macro economics, particularly on issues to do with inequality, power, and institutions in the labor market. In recent work, she has studied the extent of employer concentration in the US labor market, the macroeconomic effects of the decline of worker power in the US, and the incentives for minimum wage non-compliance in the US and the UK.
Stansbury holds a BA in economics from Cambridge University, a Master's in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, and an MA and PhD in economics from Harvard University.
More information about her research can be found on her personal website at annastansbury.com
Honors
Stansbury wins dissertation award
Publications
Featured Publication
"Employer Concentration and Outside Options."
Schubert, Gregor, Anna Stansbury, and Bledi Taska, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6465-21. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, January 2021.
Featured Publication
"The Declining Worker Power Hypothesis: An Explanation for the Recent Evolution of the American Economy."
Anna Stansbury and Lawrence H. Summers. In Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Washington, D.C.: April 2020.
"How to Tackle the UK’s Regional Economic Inequality: Focus on STEM, Transport, and Innovation."
Stansbury, Anna, Dan Turner, and Ed Balls. VoxEU, March 6, 2023.
"Tackling the UK’s Regional Economic Inequality: Binding Constraints and Avenues for Policy Intervention."
Stansbury, Anna, Dan Turner, and Ed Balls, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6836-23. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, 2023.
"Why Gender Disparities Persist in South Korea’s Labor Market."
Dynan, Karen, Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, and Anna Stansbury, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6810-22. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, July 2022. PIEE Working Paper No. 22-11.
"Economics Needs More Socioeconomic Diversity."
Stansbury, Anna. Harvard Business Review, June 10, 2022.
Recent Insights
Ideas Made to Matter
4 researchers join MIT Sloan faculty
Research topics include analyzing firm behavior, data-driven sequential decision-making, inequality and worker power, and renewable energy integration.
Jul 7, 2021
Media Highlights
Press
Source:
eFinancialCareers
How STEM dethroned finance degrees
Finance degrees have been losing out to STEM degrees, a research paper [by Prof. Anna Stansbury and co-authors] has found.
Press
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Fortune
Remote work could be the reason you don't have a job in 10 years
"It seems very likely that a lot of companies will be rethinking this longer-term and outsourcing those kinds of jobs that didn’t used to be."
Press
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Bloomberg | Businessweek
Columbia, MIT explore the future of work with new business school course...
Now, it's less about threats and more about the trade-offs between people and profits.
Press
Source:
Bloomberg Markets | Odd Lots (Podcast)
Anna Stansbury on how to boost worker bargaining power
"Being a member of a union that bargains over your compensation enables you to share to some extent more in the profits of your firm."