The Samuel DuBois Cook Center is a scholarly collaborative that studies the causes and consequences of inequality and develops remedies for these disparities and their adverse effects.
Cook Center Director William A. “Sandy” Darity Jr. and former Diversity Initiative for Tenure in Economics (DITE) fellow Stephan Lefebvre published a new article in the AEA Papers and Proceedings titled “Root Causes of the Racial Wealth Gap: A Critique of the Fed View”. In this piece, Darity and Lefebvre challenge the Federal Reserve’s approach…
On May 14, 2025, the Duke Center for Child & Family Policy hosted the Triangle Economics of Education Workshop (TEEW) at the Sanford School of Public Policy. The event convened leading scholars to share and discuss empirical research on the economics of education. Among the presenters was Sungmee Kim, Postdoctoral Associate at the Samuel DuBois…
Founding Director William A. “Sandy” Darity Jr., Ph.D., appears in the new short film The Fire This Time, which explores the historical links between pandemics and social unrest. Directed by award-winning filmmaker and artist Mariam Ghani, The Fire This Time weaves together archival and contemporary footage to examine the social reverberations of major pandemics, drawing…
Founding Director William Darity Jr. co-authored a new literature review in The BMJ that directly addresses one of the most persistent critiques of reparations: the claim that no feasible plan exists. The proposal outlines direct monetary payments as the clearest economic measure of the cumulative and intergenerational effects of white supremacy. The article argues that…
Cook Center Director William A. Darity Jr. will be among the featured speakers at an upcoming public hearing hosted by the New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies (NYSCCRR) on Saturday, March 21st, 2026, in Staten Island, New York. The hearing, titled “Economic Development: Quantifying Harms,” is part of the Commission’s statewide effort to…
New research co-authored by Faculty Affiliate Sarah Gaither, Associate Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University, explores how something as routine as demographic forms can influence feelings of inclusion and identity among marginalized communities. Published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the study—“Enumeration or Exclusion? Demographic Forms and Latine Identity”—investigates how demographic questions may…
