UC Berkeley’s flagship institute for social science research

Our purpose is captured in our name: we provide an organizational framework—a “matrix”—that supports cross-disciplinary research pursued by social scientists across the University of California, Berkeley campus and beyond.

Special Event

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Event Date: May 8th, 2024
2:00pm-3:00pm

Global Economic Developments: A View from the IMF

UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff are invited to join us on May 8, 2024 from 2:00pm-3:00pm for a town hall meeting with Gita Gopinath, the First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. The event will feature an interview of Dr Gopinath conducted by current UC Berkeley students on topics ranging from debt sustainability to economic fragmentation and the role of the dollar in the global economy, followed by an open question period.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published October 16, 2014

The Dragon of Debt

An oral history project about the national debt features interviews with top U.S. policy-makers from the past five decades.

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Workshop/Symposium

Published October 7, 2014

Behavior Measurement and Change

A Matrix seminar explored how mobile devices and other "sensors" are transforming how social scientists working in different disciplines can measure—and change—human behavior.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published October 6, 2014

Credit and Class

Economic classification tools such as credit scores directly contribute to stratification and class division, according to Berkeley sociologist Marion Fourcade.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published October 2, 2014

From Plantation to Corporation

A UC Berkeley historian explores how commonly used modern-day business practices evolved from methods used in the operation of brutal slave plantations.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published September 30, 2014

Behind the Beef Machine

The origins of the modern U.S. beef industry go farther back than most people realize, says UC Berkeley historian Joshua Specht.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published September 23, 2014

Population and Climate Change

A team of UC Berkeley researchers warn that unless action is taken, certain countries will likely face dire rates of starvation and disease.

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