2019 Social Enterprise Leadership Forum

Are Americans Primarily Suffering from Income Inequality or Lack of Opportunity? Diagnosing the Problem and Proposing Solutions

Friday, May 3, 2019
7:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m

While class divisions in America have been a source of concern for decades, attention to this topic increased after the 2008-09 financial crisis and has continued to influence our debates on how to advance as a nation. There are many proposals for addressing class divisions, but these proposals are frequently inconsistent with one another. This inconsistency is often due to proposed solutions being based on different diagnoses of the problem.

Columbia Business School’s 2019 Social Enterprise Leadership Forum (SELF) will focus on two important diagnoses and solutions that emerge from them. On the one hand, many academics and policy makers see the problem in terms of the distance between the rich and poor—income inequality—with society in a precarious state due to this wide inequality. Others, however, see the problem as largely being one of immobility or lack of opportunity to move up the socio-economic class ladder. From this perspective, the greatest challenge for the U.S. is not inequality per se, but the barriers to mobility.

Reaching a deeper understanding of these two interdependent challenges, and their implications for solutions, is critical to the progress of our nation at this critical juncture. It is a topic central to the business community in our roles as investors, employers, advisors, and citizens, in addition to our substantial influence on policy. As a community with the ability to affect wide-scale change, we need to understand these diagnoses in order to effectively contribute to the solutions.

This event is by invitation only. If you are interested in being added to the invitation list, please contact [email protected].

Agenda

7:30–7:45 AM

Breakfast and Registration

7:45–8:00 AM

Welcome Remarks

8:00–8:15 AM

Opening Keynote: A Policy Agenda to Develop Human Capital for the Modern Economy

8:15–9:45 AM

Education, Inequality, and Mobility: Unpacking Persistence

9:45–10:00 AM

Coffee Break

10:00–10:30 AM

Inequality and Happiness

10:30–11:30 AM

Lessons From Other Countries

11:30 AM–12:15 PM

Lunch

12:15–1:00 PM

Lunch Keynote: Leveling the Playing Field through Education

1:00–1:15 PM

Coffee Break

1:15–2:15 PM

Employment, Inequality, and Mobility

2:15–2:30 PM

Closing Remarks