The Work Goes On: An Oral History of Industrial Relations and Labor Economics with Princeton’s Orley Ashenfelter

Henry Farber, Hughes-Rogers Professor of Economics emeritus at Princeton University, discusses his early life growing up in an industrial, working-class town in New Jersey, his early interest in labor unions and his nearly fifty-year-long study of labor economics. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-11/035-TWGO-Farber_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/henry-farber-2024

George Borjas, the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, discusses his early life in Cuba, his experiences as an immigrant in the United States, his schooling at Columbia University, and his thoughts on the current immigration debate in the United States. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-11/034-TWGO-Borjas_transcript.pdf. For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/George-Borjas-2024.

Robert Moffitt, the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins University, discusses his early education, his interest in labor economics, applied microeconometrics, and welfare policy, and how his work has influenced major debates in public policy, especially the economics of low-income populations in the United States. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-10/033-TWGO-Moffitt_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/robert-moffitt-2024

Samuel Bowles, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts and Research Professor and Director of the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute, discusses his deep-rooted interest in economic inequality and how his work has challenged many of the conventional assumptions of modern economic theory. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-10/032-TWGO-Bowles_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/samuel-bowles-2024

Marjorie McElroy, Professor of Economics at Duke University, joins the podcast to discuss her long and varied academic career, her research on the economics of marriage and the family, and, especially, the challenges and gender discrimination she faced as, at the time, one of the few female economists pursuing a traditionally male-dominated profession. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-09/031-TWGO-McElroy_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/marjorie-mcelroy-2024

For the 30th episode of "The Work Goes On", we flipped the script and asked our long-time host Orley Ashenfelter, the Joseph Douglas Green 1895 Professor of Economics, Emeritus at Princeton University and former director of Princeton’s Industrial Relations Section (IR Section), to start answering questions instead of asking them. Janet Currie, the Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton and one of Orley’s former students, joins us in this episode as a special guest host. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-09/030-TWGO-Ashenfelter_transcript.pdf. For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/orley-ashenfelter-2024

Ernst Stromsdorfer, Emeritus Professor of Economics at Washington State University, joins the podcast to discuss his impressive body of research on the impact of labor market programs on different groups of people, and his wide-ranging career across academia, the private sector, and state and federal governments. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-06/029-TWGO-Stromsdorfer_transcript3.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/ernst-stromsdorfer-2024

David Lewin, the Neil Jacoby Emeritus Professor of Management and Human Resources at UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management. joins the podcast to discuss what sparked his interest in unions and grievance procedures, the Federal Trade Commission's new plan to ban noncompete agreements, and why unionization will re-emerge in the U.S. south and elsewhere. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-05/028-TWGO-Lewin_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/david-lewin-2024

Robert T. Michael, the Eliakim Hastings Moore Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus and Dean Emeritus at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, joins the podcast to discuss his path to the University of Chicago, why he loves teaching, and the challenges of collecting vital data on sensitive topics like human sexual behavior. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-04/027-TWGO-Michael_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/robert-michael-2024

Barry Chiswick, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University, joins the podcast to discuss his wealth of research on immigration and what he learned studying Jewish Americans in the labor market. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-03/026-TWGO-Chiswick_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/barry-chiswick-2024

Robert Flanagan, the Matsushita Professor of International Labor Economics and Policy Analysis Emeritus at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, joins the podcast to discuss what he’s learned both studying and working for unions, how his time in a musician’s union inspired him to research financial difficulties in the performing arts, and more. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-03/025-TWGO-Flanagan_transcript-edit2.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/robert-flanagan-2024

Bob Gregory, Professor Emeritus at the Research School of Economics at Australian National University, joins the podcast to discuss how getting polio at fourteen years old affected his life trajectory, why he fell in love with economics, and his many contributions as a public servant. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-02/024-TWGO-Gregory_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/bob-gregory-2024

Sir Stephen John Nickell, Honorary Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, joins the podcast to discuss his many mentors at the London School of Economics, how an invite to meet Gordon Brown in Aspen helped put a labor economist on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, and his lasting impact on the field of labor economics and economic policy in the UK. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-02/023-TWGO-Nickell_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/stephen-nickell-2024

Robert Willis, Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Michigan, joins the podcast to discuss his time as a seaman working the Washington State Ferries, his path to economics, and the origins of the Health and Retirement Study at the University of Michigan. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2024-02/022-TWGO-Willis_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/robert-willis-2024

Robert Pollak, the Hernreich Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the Washington University in St. Louis, joins the podcast to discuss his work modeling economic decisions and bargaining within families and how he and his wife, an English professor and American poetry scholar, navigated the “two career problem.” Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2023-12/021-TWGO-Pollak_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/robert-pollak-2023

Bruno Contini, Professor Emeritus of the University of Turin and Honorary Fellow of the Collegio Carlo Alberto, joins the podcast to discuss his childhood under fascism, his experience studying and teaching in the United States, and his expertise on Italian labor markets. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2023-11/020-TWGO-Contini_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit:https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/bruno-contini-2023

Myra Strober, Professor Emerita at the School of Education at Stanford University, joins the podcast to discuss her path as a trailblazing female labor economist and the first president of the International Association for Feminist Economics. Read a transcript of the podcast: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2023-11/019-TWGO-Strober_transcript.pdf. For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/myra-strober-2023

Ray Marshall, Professor of Economics emeritus and Rapoport Centennial chair in Economics and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, joins the podcast to discuss his childhood in a Mississippi orphanage, how the GI bill helped him become an economist, and his experience as Secretary of Labor in the Carter administration. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2023-10/018-TWGO-%20transcript.pdf. For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/ray-marshall-2023

W. Craig Riddell, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia, joins the podcast to discuss his early life in small-town Ontario, his brief stint in the Canadian Navy, and how he discovered a passion for labor economics. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2023-09/016-TWGO-Kochan_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2023-10/017-TWGO-transcript.pdf

Thomas Kochan, the George Maverick Bunker Professor Emeritus of Management at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, joins the podcast to discuss his life’s work studying unions, arbitrating labor disputes, and advocating for the restoration of a social contract that rewards the contributions of workers. Kochan and Ashenfelter also discuss the “deep economic dimensions and deep political dimensions” of the currently ongoing United Auto Workers strike. Read a transcript of the podcast here: https://irs100.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2023-09/016-TWGO-Kochan_transcript.pdf For more details on this episode, visit: https://irs100.princeton.edu/podcasts/thomas-kochan