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The Lavin Agency Speakers Bureau

A speakers bureau that represents the best original thinkers,
writers, and doers for speaking engagements.

Raj Chetty

How can we revive the American Dream of upward social and economic mobility for all?

Harvard Economist | MacArthur Genius Studying Economic Opportunity | Director of Opportunity Insights

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Lavin Exclusive Speaker

The defining feature of the American Dream is upward social mobility: the belief that, through hard work, all children have a chance at economic success regardless of background. But this dream is fading, and fast. How do we revive it? Raj Chetty—the Harvard professor, MacArthur “Genius,” and hugely influential economist—has spent his career studying this problem and developing scalable solutions around upward mobility. At Opportunity Insights, he uses big data to study the science of economic opportunity. And in his captivating keynotes, he draws on his original research to look at the policies that will empower people throughout the United States to rise out of poverty and achieve better lives.

“The single most influential economist in the world today.”—Tyler Cowen, Author of The Great Stagnation

Raj Chetty is the William A. Ackman Professor of Economics at Harvard and one of the youngest tenured professors in the university’s history. He is a recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious John Bates Clark medal, given to the economist under 40 whose work is judged to have made the most significant contribution to the field, and Harvard’s George Ledlie prize, awarded for research that made the most valuable contribution to science, or in any way for the benefit of mankind.

At Harvard, Raj is the Director of Opportunity Insights, a nonpartisan not-for-profit organization that tackles big societal questions such as: how can we give children from all backgrounds better chances of succeeding? Their research shows, for example, that children’s chances of earning more than their parents have been declining. 90% of children born in 1940 grew up to earn more than their parents. Today, only half of all children earn more than their parents did. Raj and his team seek to reverse this trend and revive the American Dream. They work collaboratively with local stakeholders to translate their research findings into policy change and to train the next generation of social scientists and practitioners to improve opportunity for all.

Raj received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 2003, and, since then, his work has been widely cited in academia, mainstream media outlets, and policy discussions in the United States and beyond.

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Speech Topics

Politics & Society

Reviving the American Dream

How can big data reveal the drivers of economic opportunity? In this wide-ranging keynote, economist Raj Chetty discusses what can be done to foster upward mobility, the factors that impact a child’s chances of success, and the innovative solutions being developed to bridge the opportunity gap.