The Cook Center organizes its research, programmatic and scholarship activities into the following domains:

Within the Center’s rich interdisciplinary community, our research scholars pursue projects across various fields of inquiry as well as with researchers at Duke and scholars throughout the world.

Major Research Questions

  • How do group identities vary over time and space?
  • What creates variations in group identity formation over time and space?
  • What is the relationship between group identity established by self-classification, social-classification, and legal classification? Which is most salient, and in what contexts?
  • How does intergroup inequality vary over time and space? What mechanisms affect the degree of this inequality?
  • What are the consequences of the persistence of intergroup inequality over time and space? To what extent does intergroup inequality contribute to interethnic violence, trauma, and social instability?
  • What are the policies that will best produce sustained reductions in the degree of intergroup inequality?

Teacher Recruitment and Retention Trends Across North Carolina and the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Income Supplements versus Building Assets and the Racial Wealth Gap: Tax Policies

Hypodescent or ingroup overexclusion?: Children’s and adults’ racial categorization of ambiguous black/white biracial faces

Stratification Economics: A Primer and an Explanation on Opposition to Affirmative Action

Understanding the Effects of Windfalls: What People Do with Financial Payouts, and What It Means for Policy

Increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the fields of nutrition and obesity: A road map to equity in academia

Are Leaders Still Presumed White by Default? Racial Bias in Leader Categorization Revisited

Color of Wealth Studies

Unraveling the Hispanic Health Paradox

Prison Hospital Data Is Omitted From Federal Data Sets

The 5Ws of Racial Equity in Research: A Framework for Applying a Racial Equity Lens Throughout the Research Process

Association Between Racial Wealth Inequities and Racial Disparities in Longevity Among US Adults and Role of Reparations Payments, 1992 to 2018

Alternatives to the scarcity principle

Position and Possessions: Stratification Economics and Intergroup Inequality

Setting the Record Straight on the Libertarian South African Economist W. H. Hutt and James M. Buchanan

Self-Reporting Race in Small Business Loans: A Game-Theoretic Analysis of Evidence from PPP Loans in Durham, NC

Returns in the Labor Market: A Nuanced View of Penalties at the Intersection of Race and Gender in the US

Depression in the African American Christian Community: Examining Denominational and Gender Differences

The Cumulative Costs of Racism and the Bill for Black Reparations

Telemedicine services in higher education: a review of college and university websites

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