Mark Joseph Stelzner

For the last few years, Mark Stelzner has been working on better understanding income inequality in the United States. He has conducted research on the evolution of labor laws during the Gilded Age and over the last forty years, the relationship between labor laws and inequality, the income shares of top earners in the late 1860s, the connection between support for workers and technological change, the evolution of antitrust administration since the 1960s, the link between inequality and politics, the connection between monopsony power and wage discrimination between like workers of different race, ethnicities, and gender groups, and the degree to which Americans have overpaid for private medical care.  His work has been featured in the Economist, the Nation, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, the Center for American Progress, and other venues.

He has taught Introduction to Microeconomics, Introduction to Macroeconomics, Intermediate Microeconomics, Economic Development, Public Economics, Game Theory, and U.S. Economic History.

Mark Stelzner holds a bachelor's degree in physics from Boston University, a master's in global finance, trade and economic integration from the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies, and a doctorate in economics from the University of Massachusetts.

Recent academic publications and working papers:

• Stelzner, M. and Paul, M. (Expected 2020). Monopsony and Collective Action in an Institutional Context. Review of Social Economy.  
• Stelzner, M. and Nam, D. (2020). The Big Cost of Big Medicine: Calculating the Rent in Private Healthcare.  Review of Social Economy.  
• Stelzner, M. and Bahn, K. (2020). Wage Discrimination and Monopsony Power.  Working paper: Washington Center for Equitable Growth.  
• Stelzner, M. and Chaturvedi, M. (2020). Deregulating Antitrust Policy.  Cambridge Journal of Economics.  
• Stelzner, M. (2020). Slavery and Capitalism. Labor History.  
• Stelzner, M., Hoyt, E., and Toushita, R. (2020). Structured Conflict: Changes in Federal and State Labor. Working paper: Political Economy Research Center.  
• Stelzner, M. (2018). The labor injunction and peonage—how changes in labor laws increased inequality during the Gilded Age. Journal of Post Keynesian Economics.  
• Bivens, J., Morrissey, M. and Stelzner, M. (2018). Fiscal commission has the wrong prescription for Connecticut. Economic Policy Institute. 
• Stelzner, M. and Cerrutti, E. (2018). Workers and Technological Change in the United States. Labor History, 59(6), 657-675.  
• Stelzner, M. (2017). The new American way—how changes in labour law are increasing inequality. Industrial Relations Journal.
• (2015). Income Inequality in the United States in the Late 1860s. Journal of Economic History. Vol. 75, No. 3.
• (2015). Economic Inequality and Policy Control in the United States. Palgrave Macmillan. New York City, New York.
• (2014). Political Contest, Policy Control, and Inequality in the United States. Review of Keynesian Economics, Vol. 2 No. 3, Autumn 2014. Pp. 365-383.

Recent popular articles and policy papers:

• Bahn, K. and Stelzner, M. (2020). How racial and gendered pay discrimination persists under monopsony in the United States.  Washington Center for Equitable Growth.  
• Paul, M. and Stelzner, M. (2019). Rethinking collective action and U.S. labor laws in a monopsonistic economy.  Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

Majoring in Economics.

Visit the Economics department website.