About Columbia World Projects

Columbia World Projects (CWP) is a university-wide initiative that aims to forge closer and more useful connections between Columbia University's research capabilities and the needs of the world by mobilizing researchers and scholars in collaboration with governments, organizations, businesses, and communities to tackle critical global challenges.

About the Columbia Center for Political Economy

The newly formed Columbia Center for Political Economy at Columbia World Projects identifies and advances the most promising recent developments within economics, and promote a new political economy with robust philosophical underpinnings and a cross-disciplinary orientation that connects economics to history, law, political science, sociology, public health, engineering, data science, and other fields. At the core of its work, the Center is developing “idea labs.” Designed to develop, support, and advance fresh thinking, shape research agendas, affect graduate training, and serve as intellectual and policy incubators, the idea labs will be undergirded by an explicit focus on power, inequality, and uncertainty.

This Postdoctoral Research Scholar will be embedded in the idea lab on “Firms and Antitrust,” which will explore problems of antimonopoly, antitrust, and the structure of firms. Topics may include the conditions that shape how and when firms compete, cooperate, collude, merge, and exclude rivals; push prices below competitive rates for supplies; trade access for data; compete for investors and labor; deal with activists; or enlist government support to access resources or dampen competition. Projects may also consider how major changes in firm size and structure alter the limits and possibilities of antitrust policy and law; the fit between prevailing conceptual frameworks and policy options and our present economic realities; the possibility and power of industrial policy; and the relationship between monopoly power and democracy. The Firm and Antitrust Idea Lab will be an interdisciplinary and collaborative space. We are thus soliciting applicants whose research agendas intersect these themes, and who have the desire and capacity to converse across-disciplines.

Position Summary

The Columbia Center for Political Economy is seeking a full-time Postdoctoral Research Scholar. This is a one-year position (one additional year may be possible) with an anticipated start date of July 1, 2023. Under the direction of the Center’s faculty co-directors and advisory board, the Scholar will have the opportunity to pursue their own research while supporting the work of the Center. The Center is part of Columbia World Projects at Columbia University.

Funding for the Postdoctoral Research Scholar will cover salary for up to one academic year. The scholar will commit to jointly organize seminars and conferences, public events, and additional programmatic support and outreach.

The salary range for this position is $64,000 to $84,000.

Qualifications

Applicants must have a PhD, JD, JSD, or equivalent from across the social sciences, history, and law.

Key Deadlines:

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. All application materials must be received no later than March 17, 2023 at 5:00PM EST.

Award announcements will be made in late March 2023, with an anticipated start date of July 1, 2023.

Application

Interested applicants should apply and submit the following materials to politicaleconomy@columbia.edu.

1. Cover Letter describing your interest and relevant experience;

2. Curriculum Vitae;

3. Writing sample consisting of a single journal article, essay, or book chapter (published or unpublished);

4. A summary of the research plan for which the position is sought (limited to 350 words);

5. A detailed research plan (up to five pages, single-spaced) for the position stating specific goals to be accomplished during the period it will be held; and

6. Contact information for three references familiar with your work (including your doctoral supervisor).

Please reach out to politicaleconomy@columbia.edu with any questions.