Slum Rocinha and Aerial Rio de Janeiro, via istockphoto
Overview
By investigating the broad spectrum of human societal structures, we can understand why some societies are more unequal than others.
We are creating dynamic models for understanding why some human societies are more unequal than others. From relatively egalitarian foragers to modern agricultural societies, we are investigating the broad spectrum of societal structures that underpin wealth dynamics.
Our group of quantitive social scientists — anthropologists, ethnographers, historians, and economists — has been meeting anually at SFI since 2008. In recent years, we have focused primarily on conceptual and empirical studies of how network structure affects wealth inequality, and the co-evolution of human mating systems (especially polygyny) and wealth equality.