Kevin Young Named “Spotlight Scholar”

Kevin L. Young’s work on global corporate lobbying and networks of inequality among global elites has been featured in the University of Massachusetts-Amherst magazine. Young, who recently moved from the Department of Political Science to the Department of Economics, has drawn the attention of the university and media for his use of big data and innovative methodologies to study loci of power and networks of inequality among global elites and global corporations.

Young’s interest in the power of elites began during his undergraduate days in Ontario, when he made ends meet by pulling a rickshaw—a job that led him to confront what he saw as injustices committed toward the financially vulnerable. “People were being pushed out into the street due to a wave of really bad policies,” he says. “Issues of economics became tangibly important to me. It made the world real.”

But as Young went on to study the workings of the financial industry, he found himself becoming critical of the empirical claims made by his fellow academics and activists. “Academics studying the financial industry tend to be wrapped up in an embattled ethical position, whereby they emphasize the strength of the industry,” says Young. While he shares that ethical position, Young is not afraid to challenge perceived wisdom to uncover hidden truths.