Center for Political Economy

A center at Columbia World Projects.

CPE factory workers 2

The Columbia Center for Political Economy identifies and advances the most promising contemporary developments within economics and promotes a new political economy with a robust institutional, cross-disciplinary orientation. 

Read the news announcement.

Lee C. Bollinger
President Emeritus and Seth Low Professor of the University, Columbia University

“With the creation of this center, Columbia University will be joining a critically important national and global effort to address the nature of political economy and how it determines matters such as the distribution of wealth and the relationship of the public and private spheres of our lives,” said Columbia President Emeritus Lee C. Bollinger. “I can’t think of a subject more urgent or consequential, and I’m deeply grateful to the Hewlett Foundation for its support.”

About

Launched in 2022, the Columbia Center for Political Economy has two primary goals: to identify and advance the most promising post-2008 developments within economics and to promote a new political economy with robust philosophical underpinnings. This approach is distinctive for our time, with an institutional, cross-disciplinary orientation connecting economics to history, law, political science, sociology, public health, engineering, data science and more.

The economic shocks generated by the financial meltdown of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic have catalyzed a wide range of fresh thinking. Not just financial or viral crises, but soaring inequalities, transformations to the scale of firms, often beyond effective regulation, inadequate investments in public goods, and global supply chain limitations have called into question the adequacy of inherited economic frameworks, especially radical market-based approaches that often go hand in hand with budgetary austerity.  

As scholars grapple with questions of power, inequality and uncertainty, a  new intellectual movement is unfolding, marked by the emergence of post-neoliberal theory and an empirical turn in applied research. This movement breaks free from a fixation on efficiency as the primary criterion to evaluate market outcomes. Scholarship concerning political economy now brings economics into conversation with other disciplines, as scholars respond to the multiple dimensions of inequality — attending not only to vital assets like housing and medical care, but also to access to dignity and respect, heightened political and economic uncertainty, and fractured institutions.

The Columbia Center for Political Economy is motivated by these contemporary circumstances, confident that renewed thinking in economics and interdisciplinary engagement can generate practical policy ideas that advance prospects to secure and share prosperity, sustain the environment, and undergird representative democracy.

Supported by the Hewlett Foundation, the center expands upon existing Columbia initiatives, seeding new research, scholarly publications, policy briefs, curricular materials and networks of scholars and practitioners within and beyond the university. At the core of the center's activities are “Idea Labs,” serving as intellectual and policy incubators across distinct themes.

The ambitions of the Center rest on the understanding that the structure and movements in markets for goods, services, money and financial assets are always shaped by political forces; the economy is always a political economy.

To learn more about the Center for Political Economy and get involved, please sign up for our newsletter.

Faculty Co-Directors

Ira Katznelson
Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia University; Deputy Director, Columbia World Projects

Suresh Naidu
Professor of International and Public Affairs and Jack Wang and Echo Ren Professor of Economics, Columbia University 

Katharina Pistor 
Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law and Director of the Center on Global Legal Transformation, Columbia Law School

Center Team

David Caughlin
Project Director

Melissa Vargas
Senior Project Officer, Columbia World Projects

Kathryn Burke
Project Officer, Center for Political Economy at Columbia World Projects

Advisory Board

Kate Andrias
Patricia D. and R. Paul Yetter Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Constitutional Governance, Columbia Law School

Alessandra Casella
Professor of Economics and Political Science, Columbia University

Jeffry Frieden
Incoming Professor of International and Public Affairs and Political Science

Geoffrey Heal
Donald C. Waite III Professor of Social Enterprise, Columbia Business School

Olatunde Johnson
Jerome B. Sherman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

M. Victoria Murillo
Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies and Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Columbia University

Premilla Nadasen
Professor of History, Barnard College

Andrea Prat
Richard Paul Richman Professor of Business, Columbia Business School

Joseph E. Stiglitz
University Professor, Columbia University

Bruce Western
Director of the Justice Lab and Bryce Professor of Sociology and Social Justice, Columbia University

Michael Woodford
John Bates Clark Professor of Political Economy, Columbia University

Idea Labs

The Idea Labs function as convening hubs for Columbia faculty and students to advance new thinking, affect graduate training, and incubate ideas. The Labs are designed to develop new intellectual frameworks in economics and related fields that take seriously the concepts of power, equity and uncertainty. To do so, they create opportunities for faculty and students to engage with practitioners and policymakers, and support, identify and advance the most promising recent developments.

The Labs have an intentional cross-disciplinary focus that bring together the disparate fields of economics, history, law, political science, sociology, public health, engineering, data science and other areas of study.

In total, the Center will launch four Idea Labs focused on Work and Labor, Firms and Industrial Policy, Money and Finance and the Political Economy of Climate. 

The Work and Labor Idea Lab investigates the forces, institutions and ideas that shape and regulate labor markets. It focuses on modes of collective action and interactions among workers, employers, markets and society at large, paying particular attention to the future of labor movements at home and abroad and how they address and are shaped by technological and other transformations.

The Firms and Industrial Policy Idea Lab engages faculty and students in interdisciplinary and collaborative discussions to gain new insights into firm behavior and what works (and doesn’t work) in industrial policy. Areas of exploration include the factors that shape technology adoption, product innovation, quality upgrading, R&D investments, patenting, and other forms of innovative behavior; how such decisions are influenced by market conditions, network relationships and supply chain architecture; and novel ways to measure such decisions and influences.

The Money and Finance Idea Lab explores the relation of money and finance in theoretical terms and in institutional configurations, including the design of financial and policy instruments employed by central banks, as well as the design of financial intermediaries and their relation to central banks and market regulators.

The Political Economy of Climate Idea Lab explores how political and economic forces shape policy and societal responses to climate change. For the 2024-25 academic year, the Lab is particularly focused on the political economy of forests and how communities dependent on fossil fuel extraction adjust to shifts in demand.

As multi-year projects, each Lab:

  • Hosts one or more postdoctoral research scholars;
  • Provides annual grants to Columbia faculty and graduate students on related topics;
  • Organizes conferences, seminars, workshops and other public and semi-public events; and
  • Generates scholarly publications, curricular materials and public-facing reports.

We encourage you to join an Idea Lab to shape the next generation of thinking about key issues in political economy. To learn more and get involved, please sign up for our newsletter.

Faculty Grants

The Center's Faculty Grants provide funding to generate new knowledge and new networks, facilitate the exchange of discoveries, accelerate the identification of key challenges, and open up the methods scholars use. This opportunity is open to faculty with projects that generate new knowledge and networks, facilitate knowledge exchange, and expand scholars' methods related to the Idea Labs themes. Read more about the six Columbia faculty selected for inaugural Center grants here.

Applications are now open for 2025 Faculty Grants! 

More information on how to apply

If this is not a great fit for you, read about Columbia Global's other 2025 funding opportunities for faculty and researchers now open for applications.

Graduate Grants

The 2025 Graduate Student Grant opportunity is now closed. Sign up for the Columbia Center for Political Economy newsletter to be notified when the opportunity is open again.

Center Graduate Student Grants are for one year and are intended to support research and the generation of new knowledge and new networks. We are open to research that uses qualitative and/or quantitative approaches, including those that incorporate historical, ethnographic, interview-based, or policy or legal analysis. Read more about the 20 graduate student projects selected for the inaugural Center grants in 2024.

 

Events

Previous Events: 

Postdoctoral Research Scholars

The Center for Political Economy is now accepting applications for its postdoctoral research scholar competition for the 2025-26 year. Learn more and apply here.

The Center for Political Economy’s currently has four postdoctoral research scholars, Dario Laudati (Money and Finance Idea Lab), William O’Connell (Money and Finance Idea Lab), Nils Kupzok (Firms and Industrial Policy Idea Lab), and Michael Gould-Wartofsky (Work and Labor Idea Lab).

The Center sponsors postdoctoral fellowships intended to provide early-career scholars with time to undertake research and/or writing for projects that will make substantial and original contributions to the understanding of political economy. Each lab has at least one postdoctoral fellow whose time is divided between their own research and the lab’s explorations and activities. Fellowships aim to support scholars affiliated with institutions of all types from all regions of the world, and who bring viewpoints and backgrounds that seek to expand the knowledge of the Idea Lab in which they are housed.

Michael A. Gould-Wartofsky
Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Work and Labor Idea Lab

Nils Kupzok
Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Firms and Industrial Policy Idea Lab

Dario Laudati
Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Money and Finance Idea Lab

William O’Connell
Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Money and Finance Idea Lab

Get Involved

If you or your organization is interested in supporting the work of the center, please email [email protected] and join our newsletter.