Open Call: Research Grants for Early Career Scholars (US)

Equitable Growth promotes efforts to increase diversity in the economics profession and across the social sciences. They recognize the importance of diverse perspectives in broadening and deepening research on the topics in this Request for Proposals and the need to elevate diverse voices to shape debates and policy solutions.

Early Career grants are intended to provide support to scholars. Therefore, the relevance—to Equitable Growth and to policy of applicants’ overall research agenda, as described in the personal statement, is weighted equally to the relevance and strength of the proposal itself.

Priority Areas

• The following are the broad areas of research that are of interest to them.
  • Macroeconomic growth:
    • How can policy best support the supply side of the economy to generate equitable growth? What government policies are most effective at crowding-in private investment and spurring growth? Research evaluating the macroeconomic effects of productive investments is of particular interest.
    • How can economic modeling better inform government policy aimed at adapting to climate change? They are especially interested in models that will inform policies at the community or industry levels, those that take extremes and not just averages into account, and those that can more effectively consider the role of capital and labor frictions, as well as the effect of nonprice policies.
  • Fiscal policy:
    • What are the distributional effects of fiscal and regulatory policy, and do they differ across different demographic groups? They’re particularly interested in techniques for conducting distributional analysis of regulatory reforms.
    • How have changes to the tax code affected economic growth and inequality? They are interested in aggregate outcomes, firm outcomes, and household/individual outcomes. Research on the taxation of pass-through businesses, especially large partnerships with complex ownership structures, is of particular interest.
  • Labor market:
    • What policies, investments, or combinations of policies and investments are most effective at supporting workers and/or local labor markets to respond to transitions? They are especially interested in research addressing the energy transition and the use of new and emerging technologies.
    • What are the effects on firms of policies intended to improve worker well-being? They’re interested in firm outcomes of workplace policies, such as paid leave, of government policies, such as stable schedule mandates, or of outcomes stemming from worker representation through unions or other forms of collective action.
    • They are particularly interested in research exploring the links between worker power, high-quality jobs, and economic growth. What forms of worker power or aspects of high-quality jobs lead to better outcomes for firms and for the economy?
  • Human capital & Well-being:
    • What are the long-term returns to investments in children and families? They are particularly interested in the long-term human capital and growth outcomes stemming from income supports, including, but not limited to, the Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit, or direct cash payments.
    • How do policies designed to promote individual and family well-being affect labor force participation, consumption, or other outcomes?
    • What policies are most effective at making child care accessible, affordable, and high quality, and at boosting wages and job quality for the child care workforce?
  • Economic mobility:
    • What policies, especially at scale, may be effective in making upward mobility more attainable and equitable?
    • What mechanisms explain the strong correlations they see in who achieves upward mobility? While they are interested in both contemporary and historical approaches to these questions, they are particularly interested in research that will clarify indicators to guide policymaking today.
  • Market structure:
    • How effective are policies intended to promote competition, including, but not limited to, the state of antitrust enforcement and regulatory approaches? They are also interested in new foundations for antitrust actions that do not necessarily rely on prices and comparisons of the U.S. antitrust enforcement regime with other models.
    • How have technological developments affected competition? How does market concentration affect the development or deployment of new technologies?

Funding Information

• Graduate student grants are set at $15,000 over one year.
• Early career scholar grants are set at $30,000 over one to two years, depending on the timeline of the research project.

Eligibility Criteria

• This request for proposals is open to:
  • Graduate students currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program at a U.S. college or university who are in the dissertation stage of their graduate career
  • Early career scholars at a U.S. college or university whose Ph.D. was issued within the past 8 years. If you have received tenure, you are not eligible for an Early Career grant.
• Graduate student grants are typically administered directly to the student. International students at U.S. universities are eligible to apply, though if awarded, the grant would likely need to be administered through the university. International students are advised to communicate their intention to apply with their institution to ensure adherence to institutional protocol if funded.
• Graduate students who will complete their Ph.D. prior to September 1, 2025 should apply as an early career scholar, as they are only able to directly award funds to active students. Postdoctoral scholars are not considered active students and should apply as early career researchers.  Applicants do not have to be in a tenure-track position to be eligible. If you are not a graduate student, the affiliated university must administer the grant.

Ineligibility Criteria

• If you currently have an open Equitable Growth grant with an end-date beyond June 2025, you are not eligible to apply.
• They understand that research is collaborative. Applicants may have co-authors who are further along in their career, though those co-authors are not eligible for funding.

Evaluation Criteria

• All applications will be evaluated on the following criteria:
  • Relevance of the overall application package to Equitable Growth’s funding priorities
  • Scholar’s potential to engage beyond academia to inform evidence-backed policy solutions
  • Potential of the proposed research and overall research agenda to generate actionable insights and inform policy design and implementation
  • Proposed research questions are appropriately framed within the existing literature
  • Proposed research has the potential to advance the literature
  • Methodological soundness of the research design, including appropriate data
  • If you have questions regarding your potential grant application.

For more information, visit Washington Center for Equitable Growth.