Subject: Update on Berkeley Center for Equitable Growth
From: "Daetz, Steve" <[email-masked]>
To: "Alan Blinder ([email-masked])" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Sandler, Herbert" <[email-masked]>, "Daetz, Steve" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2015 22:11:23 +0000

Hi Alan, John and Bob (Bob’s email sent separately):  I just wanted to send along a quick update about Emmanuel Saez’ Berkeley Center for Equitable Growth<http://ceg.berkeley.edu/index.html>.

1.       Gabriel Zucman<http://gabriel-zucman.eu/>, a rising star, is joining Emmanuel at Berkeley this fall as a newly minted assistant professor.  He will be teaching a new undergraduate course in the spring, “Global Inequality and Growth.”  Attached is the preliminary syllabus for the course.

2.       The Arnold Foundation just agreed to give the Berkeley Center $660K over 3 years to pay for 2 full time research assistants to work mostly on tax data (and some summer support for Danny Yagan, Zucman, and Saez).  Separately, INET and the Sandler Foundation are each contributing funds to Berkeley to support work by Saez, Zucman and Piketty on Distributional National Accounts<http://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/dina-CEG.pdf>, which aims to bring more distributional data into official economic growth numbers.  In a good interplay between the Berkeley Center and the Washington Center, Heather and Emmanuel are collaborating on the communications and outreach strategies for DINA.

Emmanuel may not fit the mold of an out-going, charismatic “pied piper”, but he sure has a nose for talent and important projects.  And it is terrific that he is both easy to work with and embraces what the Washington Center can add to the mix.

Steve