Nina Bandelj is an economic sociologist, studying how social structures, culture, power and emotions influence economic and organizational processes, including investment and debt, inequality, globalization, postsocialist transformations, and ideas about economy.

During her fellowship year, Bandelj will be writing a book on economy of parenting. The project dismantles the false divide between cold finance and warm and fuzzy babies to investigate the creation, over the past thirty years, of the “investment child,” or efforts of parents to increasingly express love for their children through monies they invest, expend and borrow to secure kids’ future. The book will also consider the implications this visceral economy of parenting has for deepening economic and racial inequality among families in the United States.

Bandelj’s previous books include, From Communists to Foreign Capitalists: The Social Foundations of Foreign Direct Investment in Postsocialist Europe (Princeton University Press, 2008), Economic Sociology of Work (Emerald Group Publishing, 2009), Economy and State: A Sociological Perspective (Polity, 2010, with E. Sowers), The Cultural Wealth of Nations (Stanford University Press, 2011, with F. Wherry), Socialism Vanquished, Socialism Challenged: Eastern Europe and China, 1989-2009 (Oxford University Press, 2012, with D. Solinger) and Money Talks: Explaining How Money Really Works (Princeton University Press, 2017, with F. Wherry and V. Zelizer).

Bandelj is professor of sociology and associate vice provost for faculty development at the University of California, Irvine, and one of the editors of Socio-Economic Review. She received her PhD from Princeton University. For more, see her website at: https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5053