Monica Prasad

Associate Professor of Sociology
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research
Northwestern University
PhD, Sociology, University of Chicago, 2000
Email Monica Prasad
Curriculum Vitae
Additional biographical information

Monica Prasad's areas of interest are political sociology, comparative historical sociology, and economic sociology. Her book The Politics of Free Markets (University of Chicago Press, 2006) won the 2007 Barrington Moore Award. Prasad's new work includes research on the origins of progressive taxation in America, a comparative historical investigation of carbon taxes, and a recent edited volume on the sociology of taxation (co-edited with Isaac Martin and Ajay Mehrotra) called The New Fiscal Sociology: Taxation in Comparative and Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Prasad is the recipient of several awards including a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities/Social Science Research Council, a grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), a postdoctoral fellowship from the Michigan Society of Fellows, and article awards from the American Sociological Association. She received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in 2009.

Current Research

The Origins of Progressive Taxation in America. Prasad is currently working on a book and articles uncovering the curious history of the American tax system. Everyone knows that the United States is the only advanced industrial country without publicly financed national health care or compulsory national health insurance, that it has one of the smallest public welfare states in the Western world, and that there is consequently more poverty and economic vulnerability in it than in other wealthy countries. Most people, however, are surprised to learn that the United States also has the most progressive tax system of all the advanced industrial countries. In recent years, some scholars have wondered whether the one explains the other: whether the U.S.’s relatively more progressive tax system, established during the first half of the 20th century, constrained the development of the welfare state over the second half. In investigating this issue, Prasad aims to develop a more convincing theory of comparative political economy. This work has received funding from the National Science Foundation and will be published as a book titled, The Land of Too Much: A Demand-Side Theory of Comparative Political Economy.

Selected Publications

Prasad, M. Forthcoming. The Land of Too Much: A Demand-Side Theory of Comparative Political Economy. Harvard University Press.

Prasad, M., with K. Morgan. 2009. The origins of tax systems: A French-American comparison. American Journal of Sociology 14(5): 1350–94.

Martin, I., A. Mehrotra, and M. Prasad, eds. 2009. The New Fiscal Sociology: Taxation in Comparative and Historical Perspective. Cambridge University Press.

Prasad, M. 2006. The Politics of Free Markets: The Rise of Neoliberal Economic Policies in
Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. University of Chicago Press.

Prasad, M. 2005. Why is France so French? Culture, institutions, and neoliberalism, 1974-81. American Journal of Sociology 111(2): 357-407.