 Bowles frequently collaborates with his former colleague Herbert Gintis (another Emeritus Professor of Economics from Umass Amherst), both of whom were asked by Martin Luther King Jr. to write background papers for the 1968 Poor People's March.In addition, he works with and is supported by the MacArthur Research Network on Preferences, the MacArthur Research Network on the Effects of Inequality on Economic Performance and the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute.Bowles was one of the founders of economics curriculum reform initiative CORE Project which seeks to update the undergraduate curriculum to integrate topics such as altruism, inequality and environmental economics.