Inequality Expert Miles Corak Appointed to the GC Faculty

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact: Tanya Domi, 212-817-7283, tdomi@gc.cuny.edu,

NEW YORK, Oct. 30, 2017 -- Renowned economist and public policy expert Miles Corak has been appointed to the faculty of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), where he will also be a senior scholar at the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality.

Corak is currently a full professor of economics at the University of Ottawa and the economist in residence at Employment and Social Development Canada, the department of the Canadian federal government responsible for social policy. A prolific scholar and author, he is best known for his groundbreaking research on inequality and the ways in which it affects opportunity and socio-economic mobility.

Much of Corak's scholarly work involves comparisons of labor markets and social and economic policies across countries. He has published four books and numerous journal papers, book chapters, and op-eds. He regularly addresses topics such as child poverty, access to university education, social mobility, and unemployment.

Top print and electronic media, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and the BBC have cited Corak's research

In 2012, the Obama Administration used Corak's work on the Great Gatsby Curve to illustrate that in countries with higher income inequality, children from poor families are less able to improve their economic standing as adults.

For the past year, as the economist in residence in the Canadian government, Corak has advised on efforts to reduce child poverty, a mandate of the Trudeau government.

Prior to joining the University of Ottawa in 2007, he was a member of the senior management at Statistics Canada, Canada's national statistical agency. He has been a visiting researcher with the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy; the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at the University of London; the Office of Population Research at Princeton University; and the Russell Sage Foundation. He was also a visiting professor with the Department of Economics at Harvard University.

"We are delighted to welcome to our faculty such a distinguished researcher, teacher, and policy expert," said Chase F. Robinson, president of the Graduate Center. "We share with Miles a commitment to addressing the twin issues of inequality and stifled opportunity through research that informs both public discourse and public policy."

"Generations of New Yorkers know only too well, and careful academic research using hard data have clearly shown, the CUNY system is the nation's leader in promoting upward mobility, offering students the resources, skills, and knowledge to become all that they can be," Corak said. "I'm honored to be part of this great social project, and, at a professional level, I look forward to my teaching and research on the nature and causes of social mobility benefiting from the many engaged students and faculty members in the economics department and at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality."

The Stone Center, established in September 2016 - superseding and expanding the Luxembourg Income Study Center - is now home to many of the foremost experts on the causes, nature, and consequences of socio-economic inequality. Corak's expertise in the area of inequality and social mobility complements the work of the center's other prominent core faculty members Paul Krugman, Branko Milanovic, Leslie McCall, Salvatore Morelli, and Center Director Janet Gornick.

"All of us at the Stone Center are thrilled that Miles is joining our team," Gornick said. "His unrivalled expertise on mobility adds a crucial element to the center's collective scholarship."

Corak is affiliated with a number of research institutes and public policy think tanks as a research fellow or advisor, including the Institute for the Study of Labor (Bonn, Germany); the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality (Stanford University); the Inequality Measurement, Interpretation, and Policy Network of The Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics (The University of Chicago); the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (University College London); the Institute for Research on Public Policy (Montreal, Canada); the C.D. Howe Institute (Toronto, Canada); and the Broadbent Institute (Ottawa, Canada). During 2014 and 2015, he served as a member of the Economic Council of Advisors to the Liberal Party of Canada.

Corak's research has garnered many awards, including the Mike McCracken Award for Economic Statistics from the Canadian Economics Association (2015); the Doug Purvis Memorial Prize from the Canadian Economics Association (2014); and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management's Best Comparative Paper Award (2009). He also won the Excellence in Media Relations Award from the University of Ottawa (2012).

"Miles' commitment to pursuing research that advances the public good mirrors our approach to scholarship," said Joy Connolly, Graduate Center provost and senior vice president. "At the Graduate Center, we are devoted to preparing a new generation of public scholars, and I am confident that Miles will be an outstanding mentor for our students and an esteemed colleague for our faculty."

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