Postdoctoral Research Scholar - The Columbia Center for Political Economy

About Columbia World Projects

Columbia World Projects mobilizes the university's researchers and scholars to work with governments, organizations, businesses, and communities to tackle global challenges. Columbia World Projects is a major, university-wide initiative that aims to forge a closer and more useful connection between Columbia University's vast research capabilities and the needs of the world.

Columbia World Projects is part of Columbia Global, which brings together major global initiatives from across the university to advance knowledge and foster global engagement. In addition to World Projects, those initiatives include the Columbia Global Centers, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.

Columbia Global's mission is to address complex global challenges through groundbreaking scholarly pursuits, leadership development, cutting-edge research, and projects that aim for social impact.

About the Columbia Center for Political Economy

Launched in 2022, the Center for Political Economy at Columbia World Projects identifies and advances the most promising contemporary developments that concern the economy and promotes a new political economy with robust intellectual and policy incubators across distinct themes.

Position Summary

The Columbia Center for Political Economy is seeking full-time Postdoctoral Research Scholars beginning August 1, 2026. Under the direction of the Center's faculty Co-directors and Idea Lab leads, the Scholar will have the opportunity to pursue their own research while supporting the work of the Center.

The Center welcomes applications that align with its broad thematic priorities, including the focus areas of the following Idea Labs - Work and Labor, Firms and Industrial Policy, Political Economy of Climate, and International Political Economy. We encourage you to select the Idea Lab that best reflects your background, expertise, and research interests. Please see below for descriptions of each Lab.

* Work and Labor examines the forces that influence labor and labor markets, focusing on modes of collective worker action, the interplay between government policies and worker power, how worker organizations intersect with the political process and government, and the future of domestic and international labor movements, with an emphasis on empirical research. This cycle the Work and Labor Idea Lab is especially interested in applicants whose work speaks to politics and policy, including, but not limited to, the politics of enacting labor reform at different levels of government; worker perspectives on representation through labor organizations and collective action; the design of labor policies and the effects of those policies on opportunities for building worker power and fostering collective action; coalition management between worker organizations and other movements and organized interests; and the relationship between worker organizations, including unions, and politics and government.

* Firms and Industrial Policy aims to gain new insights into how firms behave, to provide a grounding for policy interventions to promote innovation and shared prosperity. Industrial policy - government interventions to stimulate innovation, accelerate technological change, and promote selected industries - is back on mainstream policy agendas across the globe . But even as the policy pendulum swings back toward government intervention, the knowledge base to guide industrial policy remains underdeveloped. Topics may focus on factors that shape firms' decisions technology adoption, product innovation, quality upgrading, R&D investments, patenting, and other forms of innovative behavior; on how such decisions are influenced by market conditions, network relationships, and supply chain architectures; on novel ways to measure such decisions and influences; and on what works and doesn't work in industrial policy.

* Political Economy of Climate explores how political and economic forces shape policy and societal responses to climate change. The Lab is most interested in fostering synergies around the following thematic areas: climate fairness and environmental justice, international collaboration or lack thereof, interests shaping the effectiveness of energy transition, and political constraints on environmental (especially climate) policies.

* International Political Economy analyzes the intersection of international economics and international politics, including the politics of international money, finance, trade, and migration, and the interaction of international economics and geopolitics.

Funding for the Postdoctoral Research Scholar will cover salary for up to one year, with the possibility of a one-year extension. Together with the other members of their Idea Lab, the scholar will organize seminars and conferences, public events, and additional programmatic support and outreach within the given Lab with which they are involved.

Applicants must have a PhD, JSD, or equivalent from across the social sciences, history, and law.

Columbia University is an Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Pay Transparency Disclosure

The salary of the finalist selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to departmental budgets, qualifications, experience, education, licenses, specialty, and training. The above hiring range represents the University's good faith and reasonable estimate of the range of possible compensation at the time of posting.