Nobel-winning economist to speak on ‘why women won’

Nobel laureate Claudia Goldin '67 will return to campus to give the 2025 Staller Lecture on Sept. 25. Goldin, a professor at Harvard University, won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economicsfor having advanced society's understanding of women's labor market outcomes.

Her lecture, "Why Women Won," will consider how society has moved from not recognizing discrimination against women to now recognizing it albeit imperfectly. She will also talk about the impact expanded rights have had on women, their families and the broader economy. The lecture is open to the public will take place 4:30-6:30 p.m., Sept. 25, in Rockefeller Hall's Schwarz Auditorium.

Her most influential papers on women in the U.S. economy have examined the history of women's quest for career and family, coeducation in higher education, the impact of contraception on women's career and marriage decisions, women's surnames after marriage as a social indicator, the reasons why women are now the majority of undergraduates, and the new lifecycle of women's employment.

"Through her research, Claudia Goldin has advanced our understanding not only of gender gaps in pay and workforce participation but also of how we can address barriers to equality," said Peter John Loewen, the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S). "She shares with so many economists and other social scientists here at Cornell the desire to understand how persistent economics problems can be solved. We are honored to have her with us, and I am delighted to welcome her back to the College of Arts and Sciences."

Goldin's research on women's role in the labor market and on the ways family shapes economic decision-making lies at the core of modern understanding of these issues and continues to frame today's research frontier, said Ryan Chahrour, the Ernest S. Liu Professor of Economics and International Studies (A&S). "When she began this work, the very notion of her upcoming lecture's title, 'Why Women Won,' would have been difficult to imagine. Her scholarship has been central to that transformation."

Across different stages of her career, Goldin has created entirely new subfields of economics, said Benjamin Goldman, assistant professor in Cornell Jeb. E. Brooks School of Public Policy, who was Goldin's student and advisee at Harvard.

"Claudia is not afraid to go where no one else has thought to go - or dared to go," Goldman said. "From modeling the economic costs and conditions of slavery to bringing women to the forefront of economics after decades of neglect, she has pushed the field forward in profound ways. Her dedication to her students is unmatched in our field."

Goldin is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics and the Lee and Ezpeleta Professor of Arts & Sciences at Harvard University. She was the director of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Development of the American Economy program from 1989-2017 and is a co-director of the NBER's Gender in the Economy group.

Her research covers a wide range of topics, including the female labor force, the gender gap in earnings, income inequality, technological change, education, and immigration. Most of her research interprets the present through the lens of the past and explores the origins of current issues of concern.

Goldin's most recent book is "Career and Family: Women's Century-Long Journey toward Equity"(2021) and she is the author and editor of several more. Her book "The Race between Education and Technology" (with Lawrence Katz, 2008, 2010) won the 2008 R.R. Hawkins Award for the most outstanding scholarly work in all disciplines of the arts and sciences.

Among her many leadership positions and honors, Goldin is the third woman to win the economics Nobel Prize, and the first to win it individually rather than sharing the prize.

The George Staller Lectureis named for George Staller, Ph.D. '57, professor of economics, who taught in the Department of Economics (A&S) from 1960 until his death, in 2009. Endowed by his student Russell B. Hawkins '77, the lecture series honors Staller's contribution to undergraduate education at Cornell.

Kate Blackwood is a writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.