Deadline approaches for John T. Dunlop Undergraduate Thesis Prize

The Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government (M-RCBG) at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) is accepting papers for a thesis prize for a graduating Harvard College senior.

The John T. Dunlop Thesis Prize in Business and Government will be awarded to the graduating senior who writes the best thesis on a challenging public policy issue at the interface of business and government.

“Recent events have illuminated the crucial nature of the business-government relationship. From macroeconomic policy to health care, from the regulation of financial instruments to energy policy, from technological innovation to protecting private pensions, business and government influence one another around the world,” said Roger Porter, the IBM Professor of Business and Government at HKS. “The John T. Dunlop Thesis Prize, named in honor of a giant in this field, allows us to encourage and recognize a new generation of young thinkers as they explore ways of understanding and improving this vital relationship.”

The prize will be awarded to the paper that best examines the business-government interface with respect to regulation, corporate responsibility, energy, the environment, health care, education, technology, and human rights, among others. A $500 award will be provided to the author of the winning entry.

The prize is named after John T. Dunlop, the Lamont University Professor Emeritus, a widely respected labor economist who served as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1969 to 1973. An adviser to many U.S. presidents, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dunlop was secretary of labor under Gerald Ford, serving from March 1975 to January 1976.

In addition to serving as secretary of labor, Dunlop held many other government posts including director of the Cost of Living Council from 1973 to 1974, chairman of the Construction Industry Stabilization Committee from 1993 to 1995, chair of the Massachusetts Joint Labor-Management Committee for Municipal Police and Firefighters from 1977 to 2003, and chair of the Commission on Migratory Farm Labor from 1984 to 2003.

Dunlop served as the second director of the Center for Business and Government from 1987 to 1991. The center, renamed in 2005 as the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, focuses on policy issues at the intersection of business and government.

The deadline for this year’s Dunlop Prize is May 7. For more information, visit the M-RCGB Web site.