Stone Centre at UCL

Congratulations to Charyl Kong, winner of the 2026 Explore Econ Stone Centre Prize, for her dissertation on women's political empowerment in Brazil:

"The policy moves women closer to political participation, but stops short of representation." Read our full interview to learn more about Charyl's work:

https://www.stone-econ.org/news-and-blogs/charyl-kongs-research-on-womens-political-empowerment-in-brazil-wins-the-2026-explore-econ-stone-centre-prize

Many thanks to UCL Economics's Pedro Carneiro for a fascinating Stone Centre breakfast on the links between childhood victimisation, mental health and adult crime.

How is AI reshaping graduate labour markets? How should disciplines, universities, and sector bodies respond? The Stone Centre and UCL Policy Lab are bringing together two expert panels to discuss, along with an afternoon hackathon to prototype educational responses.
📍UCL Main Campus
🗓️Fri 3 July 10am-5pm
🎟️ https://luma.com/nrjukkx7

Panel 1 How Graduate Labour Markets in Analytical Fields are Changing
Mark Blythe, TargetConnect)
Elanor Currin, PwC
Charlie Ball, Jisc
Gemma Gathercole (ACCA)

Panel 2 Institutional & Disciplinary Responses
Joshua Fleming, OfS
Cathy Hobbs, Academy for the Mathematical Sciences
Robyn Henriegel MInstP FRAS, Institute of Physics
Peter Watkins, CFA Institute

New research co-authored by Stone Centre PhD Scholar Ararat Gocmen: "The top 0.5% wealth share would have grown by 26% less from 2010 to 2022 if U.S. HNWIs had invested in the NASDAQ 100 rather than U.S. early-stage companies." Full summary: https://www.stone-econ.org/research/private-capital-markets-and-inequality

Javier Boncompte, our 2024/25 Stone Centre PhD Scholar, is heading to Universidad de los Andes in Chile as Assistant Professor of Economics this July.

On his job market paper on the UK sugar tax: "much of the policy's impact comes from firms reformulating their products to reduce sugar content and avoid price increases, rather than consumers switching products." Without that reformulation, Javier explains, the tax would have hit lower-income households hardest through higher prices. Learn more about Javier's work: https://www.stone-econ.org/news-and-blogs/how-do-firms-shape-their-markets-catching-up-with-javier-boncompte

How can we make the empirical evidence behind inequality research more reliable? That's the question driving the work of Liyang Sun, Lecturer in UCL Economics and recipient of a Stone Centre internal grant. Her work addresses what happens when key IV assumptions such as instrument strength and treatment effect homogeneity don't hold in practice. Read our interview with Liyang to find out more https://www.stone-econ.org/news-and-blogs/evaluating-the-tools-used-for-inequality-research-with-grant-recipient-liyang-sun

At this morning's Stone Centre breakfast François Gerard presented his work on how financial barriers shape access to justice in Brazil. We'll share a full research summary on the Stone Centre website soon. Thanks François!

Does raising the minimum wage cost jobs? Evidence from Attila Lindner challenges the traditional neoclassical model.
Following his Stone Centre breakfast presentation, we spoke with UCL Professor Attila about his research on the minimum wage, labour markets, and inequality. Read the full interview: https://www.stone-econ.org/news-and-blogs/attila-lindner-inequality-in-labour-markets-and-the-minimum-wage

Big news for the Stone Centre network: a new Centre is opening at LSE. The Stone Centre for the Study of Wealth Inequality at LSE has been funded by the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation, and will be co-directed by Professor Camille Landais and Dr Kate Smith. The Stone Centre at LSE will be the fourteenth member of the Stone Foundation’s global network, and the first with a focus on the link between entrepreneurship and inequality. It formally launches in Autumn 2026. Read more here: https://www.stone-econ.org/news-and-blogs/celebrating-a-new-stone-centre-at-lse

"We're providing everything free and open access to anyone, anywhere in the world, which is the economically rational thing to do, because the cost of any one person using it is zero." Stone Centre director Wendy Carlin discusses how CORE is tackling inequality in economics education in an interview with Anya Pearson for The Political Quarterly. Read it here: https://politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/in-the-world-of-ai-answers-are-cheap-but-whats-really-scarce-are-good-questions-interview-with-wendy-carlin/

“In the World of AI, Answers are Cheap. But What's Really Scarce are Good Questions”: Interview with Wendy Carlin Anya Pearson interviews Professor Wendy Carlin about a new way of teaching and learning economics.