Economics Events
FALL 2026
John Clegg:They're Trying to Wash Us Away: Carceral Effects of Mississippi Flooding
The talk explores how flood-control efforts have historically relied on incarcerated and coerced labor, often placing Black workers and prisoners in particularly dangerous conditions. It highlights how environmental disasters can reinforce existing racial and economic inequalities and shows the connections between the history of the Mississippi River, the prison system, and systems of labor and social control. John Clegg is an economic historian at UMass who is going to be presenting research in progress he is working on with Shih-Yen Pan.
October 1, Room L2.85, 1:40-3:00 PM
A.M. Gittlitz: Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People's Team.
Book discussion. Metropolitans explores how New York baseball—and the Mets in particular—has intersected with class struggle, racial equality, labor battles, and political change. A. M. Gittlitz tells the story of a team embraced by the counterculture, outsiders, and working people, revealing how sports can become a powerful arena for social and political struggle. A.M. Gittlitz is an organizer and writer focusing on counterculture and radical politics. He is the author of I Want to Believe: Posadism, UFOs and Apocalypse Communism and co-host of the podcast This Wreckage.
October 6, Room L2.84, 1:40-3:00 PM
Jamee Moudud: Legal and Political Foundations of Capitalism
Book Discussion. Moudud argues that capitalism and free markets cannot exist independently of government and law. Property rights, contracts, corporations, employment relationships, and markets themselves are created and shaped by legal and political institutions. Therefore, the idea of a completely “laissez-faire” economy, where government stays out of the market, is misleading. Jamee K. Moudud is a Professor of Economics at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, where he has taught since 2000. His work focuses on political economy, law and economics, corporations, property, money, and the legal foundations of markets.
October 15, Room 1.123, 1:40-3:00 PM
SPRING 2026
Guney Isikara: Marx's Theory of Value at the Frontiers
Book discussion. Marx's Theory of Value at the Frontiers takes a deep dive into the fundamentals of value theory to investigate two contemporary questions: imperialism and the ecological breakdown. Güney Işıkara, the co-author of the book, joins John Jay Economics Department seminars to discuss international value transfers and ground rent, and what their new empirical approach adds to our understanding of the geopolitical shifts in the last decades."
March 19, Room L. 76, 1:40-3:00 PM
Brian Callaci: Chains of Command: The Rise and Cruel Reign of the Franchise Economy
Professor Brian Callaci will be giving a talk for his new book, Chains of Command: The Rise and Cruel Reign of the Franchise Economy. The book analyzes how the franchise model has grown to dominate the U.S. economy, allowing large corporations to exert control over "independent" franchisees and workers while outsourcing employment and liability. The book details the history of franchising, its legal evolution, and its impact on labor, arguing that franchisors have used lobbying and litigation to reshape corporate law in their favor, creating a system of centralized control under the guise of small business ownership.
April 15, Room L2.84, 1:40-3:00 PM
Ellora Derenoncourt: Labor Market Institutions and Racial Inequality
Ellora Derenoncourt: Labor Market Institutions and Racial Inequality Professor Derenoncourt is a labor economist from Princeton, who will discuss several of her recent which analyze the effect of labor market institutions, such as the minimum wage and union membership, on racial inequality.
April 27, Room, L.84 NB, 1:40-3:00 PM
Book Launch: Against Money
Authors: J.W. Mason and Arjun Jayadev
In this revelatory book, economists J. W. Mason and Arjun Jayadev explain how and why money is so deeply misunderstood by the world it dominates—as well as the dangerous social implications of this misunderstanding. Against Money tackles the most dearly held “truths” of economics, arguing that the world of money has never been an impartial representation of the world of things. Instead, its existence in different forms—debt, capital, liquidity, and interest—increasingly shapes events in the real world rather than just reflecting them. Sometimes money enables new forms of cooperation; more oftenit facilitates domination. Human existence is not just facilitated by money but also governed by it.
May 8, Room 9.64 NB, 6:00-8:00 PM