Hey, Sociologists! Speak Up!
There’s an academic discipline that studies economic questions in illuminating ways. But it’s too quiet about it.
Don’t be bashful.
Photographer: Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP/Getty ImagesSociologists Matthew Desmond of Princeton University and Nathan Wilmers of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have written what by all appearances is going to be a blockbuster paper. I can tell you what it’s called: “Do the Poor Pay More for Housing? Exploitation, Profit, and Risk in Rental Markets.” I can also tell you that their answer is “yes.”
I could tell you a bit more than that, based on the notes I took when Desmond presented the results at the American Sociological Association annual meeting in Philadelphia last Monday. But that feels like it would be bad form, given that when I approached Desmond afterwards he said he wasn’t ready to share the paper or discuss it with the media, and hadn’t really thought yet about when he would be (he later passed on an estimate: January).