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Mark Stelzner

Mark Stelzner

Mark Stelzner’s research falls into two categories: labor inequality in the United States and consumption and happiness.  He has explored a number of topics including the contribution of enslaved workers to gross national product and per capita growth in the two decades before the Civil War, increased monitoring of enslaved workers over the antebellum period, the connection between southern slavery and the growth of early factory production in New England and the rise of New York City as a national finance hub, the economic functions of lynchings in the Jim Crow South, and the many motivations for consumption, how consumption only has a tenuous link with happiness, and potential solutions for remaking consumption and the economy more generally.  His work has been featured in the Economist, the Nation, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, the Center for American Progress, History, Against the Grain, and other venues. 

Faculty Profile