Rajiv Sethi

External Professor, Science Steering Committee




Rajiv Sethi is a co-author, with Brendan O’Flaherty, of Shadows of Doubt: Stereotypes, Crime, and the Pursuit of Justice (Harvard University Press, 2019). His primary areas of research are in microeconomic theory, with applications to communication, crime, policing, and inequality. He is currently working on the geography of lethal force.


Primary Institution: Barnard College, Columbia University

Role/Title: Professor of Economics

Topics of Interest: Agent-based Modeling - Behavior - Economics - Evolution - Finance - Law/Policy - Network Theory - Polarization/Misinformation/ Cyberhate - Risk & Uncertainty - Social Science - Strategy/Decision Making

How SFI changes your mind: SFI changed my intellectual life and research trajectory through the collected volume "The Economy as and Evolving Complex System" (edited by Arrow, Anderson, and Pines) which I read when I was just starting graduate school

When and how you first got involved with SFI: I was invited to a workshop on "Moral Sentiments and Material Interests" (with contributions eventually published as chapters in a book with that title); the organizers were Sam Bowles, Rob Boyd, Ernst Fehr and Herb Gintis

Favorite Book: Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

Favorite Film: The Lunchbox