Zero-sum thinking's profound effects on economic policy

Optimists see the glass as half full. Pessimists see it as half empty. Zero-sum thinkers believe that if someone else’s glass is full, that water was more than likely taken from their glass. Zero-sum thinking is a primary field of study for our guest on this episode of the Economics for Inclusive Prosperity podcast: Economist Stefanie Stantcheva. She’s the Nathanial Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University and the 2025 recipient of the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal, which is awarded to a young economist who has made a significant contribution to the field. Through her groundbreaking survey research at Harvard's Social Economics Lab, Stantcheva has shown that the zero-sum mindset has profound implications for politics, policy, and polarization and that it’s deeply rooted in our lived experiences, our family histories, and even the struggles of ancestors we’ve never met. She and her research partners have also found that zero-sum thinking cuts across party lines in surprising ways, and that it has strong predictive power in policymaking. In this episode, she talks to EfIP Podcast host Ralph Ranalli about why understanding the implications of zero-sum thinking is crucial to economists trying to design policies that are politically viable. 

Stefanie Stantcheva is the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard and founder and the director of the Social Economics Lab. She studies the taxation of firms and individuals, as well as how people understand, perceive, and form their attitudes towards economic issues and policies. Her recent work explores people’s attitudes towards taxation, trade, immigration, climate change, and social mobility using large-scale social economics surveys and experiments. Stantcheva was the recipient of the 2025 John Bates Clark Medal, awarded each year to an American economist under the age of forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge, and the 2020 Elaine Bennett Research Prize. She has also been named a Sloan Foundation fellow, a Guggenheim fellow, and an Andrew Carnegie Fellow. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 2014 and was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows 2014-2016 before joining the Harvard Department of Economics in July 2016. She is currently co-editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Follow Stefanie Stantcheva:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanie-stantcheva-5543581a3/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/s-stantcheva.bsky.social

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Economics for Inclusive Prosperity (EfIP) is a network of academic economists from Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and other leading universities who are committed to an inclusive economy and society. EfIP members are working to transform their field around a new vision of prosperity—a vision that includes traditional economic metrics, but also expanded measures of wellbeing including access to health, to democratic participation, and to a livable planet. They’re also highlighting the important changes in economics that are already underway.

Host Ralph Ranalli is a podcaster, entrepreneur, and former journalist, who has also hosted “HKS PolicyCast,” the award-winning flagship podcast of the Harvard Kennedy School. He holds a BA in political science from UCLA and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University.

The Economics for Inclusive Prosperity Podcast is recorded at the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The show is co-produced by Ralph Ranalli and Tony Ditta.