The Institute for Research on Poverty is a nonprofit, nonpartisan

research institute A research institute, research centre, research center or research organization, is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often i ...

at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

dedicated to studying

poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...

and

economic inequality There are wide varieties of economic inequality, most notably income inequality measured using the distribution of income (the amount of money people are paid) and wealth inequality measured using the distribution of wealth (the amount of we ...

. It was established in March 1966, as a result of an agreement between UW–Madison and the

Office of Economic Opportunity The Office of Economic Opportunity was the agency responsible for administering most of the War on Poverty programs created as part of United States President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society legislative agenda. It was established in 1964 as an i ...

. It is the oldest center for poverty research still active in the United States, and had over 150 faculty affiliates from universities across the United States (as of 2017).

Founding

The key figure behind its founding was Robert Lampman, a professor of economics at UW–Madison, who also served as the Institute's interim director. Lampman did not expect the Institute to last for very long, as he thought poverty in the United States would be eliminated soon after its founding.

Directors

The following people have been director of the Institute: * Robert Lampman (interim director; March–June 1966) *Harold Watts (1966–71) *Robert Haveman (1971–75) *Irwin Garfinkel (1975–80) *

Eugene Smolensky Eugene Smolensky is an economist and emeritus professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, where he served as Dean from 1988 to 1997. He is Vice President of the International Institute of Public Finance an ...

(1980–83) *Sheldon Danziger (1983–88) *

Charles Manski Charles Frederick Manski (born November 27, 1948 in Boston), is Professor of Economics at Northwestern University, an econometrician in the realm of rational choice theory, and an innovator in the arena of parameter identification.Charles Mansk ...

(1988–91) *

Robert M. Hauser Robert Mason Hauser is an American sociologist. He is the Vilas Research and Samuel F. Stouffer professor of sociology emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he served as director of the Institute for Research on Poverty and the ...

(1991–94) * Barbara Wolfe (1994–2000) *John Karl Scholz (2000–04) *Maria Cancian (2004–08) *Timothy Smeeding (2008–14) *Lawrence Berger (2014–19) *Katherine Magnuson (2019–present)

References

External links

* Research institutes in Wisconsin 1966 establishments in Wisconsin University of Wisconsin–Madison Research institutes established in 1966 Poverty-related organizations {{economics-stub