In the News

Boston Review

Our Top Essays of 2019

December 7, 2019

Boston Review | Among its top 10 of 2019:  "Economics After Neoliberalism," a forum with Suresh Naidu (Columbia University), Dani Rodrik (Harvard Kennedy School), and Gabriel Zucman (UC Berkeley).

“Neoliberalism—or market fundamentalism, market fetishism, etc.—is not the consistent application of modern economics, but its primitive, simplistic perversion. And contemporary economics is rife with new ideas for creating a more inclusive society.”

Tomiko Brown=Nagin

Brown-Nagin on her own path and Radcliffe's

November 13, 2019

Harvard Gazette | Radcliffe Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin discusses her priorities for Harvard's institute devoted to interdisciplinary study and research. Outlining a new initiative called Radcliffe Engaged—one of two focus areas of which will be law, education, and justice—Brown-Nagin identifies the work of Devah Pager as a model for the engaged scholarship the initiative aims to cultivate:

"I’m thinking, for example, of Devah Pager, our late colleague and a consummate, engaged intellectual who conducted sophisticated research that had an impact on national policy conversations at the intersection of race, employment, and incarceration. Devah’s work serves as a model for the kind of engaged scholarship that we want people to know the Radcliffe Institute supports. We hope to make it clear to interested scholars and students that we’re putting a stake in the ground in the law, education, and justice space."

PBS NewsHour Making Sen$e

What ending DACA could cost the U.S. economy

November 12, 2019

PBS Newshour | The fact that DACA recipients have been able to study and work under this program has also increased their spending power over time, said Roberto G. Gonzales, Professor of Education and director of Harvard University’s Immigration Initiative. A national study on the long-term impact of DACA released by the Immigration Initiative this week found that the program had enabled many beneficiaries to obtain a job and increase their earnings, and generally contributed to upward social mobility.

Tom Kane

Rural schools, researchers tackle nagging problems

September 23, 2019
Harvard Gazette | Tom Kane, the Walter H. Gale Professor of Education and Economics at HGSE and Director of the National Center for Rural Education Research Network, discusses Harvard's Rural Education Center, which launched this year.

Harvard symposium honors William Julius Wilson's five decades of work on race, class, and inequality

September 12, 2019

William Julius Wilson

Harvard Gazette | To follow the career of William Julius Wilson is to trace the evolution of the national conversation on race and class in American over the past half century.

That was the overarching theme of a three-day symposium celebrating the career of the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor Emeritus.

Professor Wilson has been an extraordinary influence to the many Harvard PhD students he advised since joining the faculty in 1996. He was one of the four founders—together with colleagues Katherine Newman, David Ellwood, and Christopher Jencks—of the Inequality & Social Policy program in 1998, and he has taught many of the nearly 300 PhD students who have come through the program since.

View symposium program + video ►

Government spending that pays for itself

Government spending that pays for itself

July 30, 2019

Vox | New research by Nathaniel Hendren and Benjamin Spring-Keyser finds that investing in kids can have huge benefits. Hendren is Professor of Economics and a founding Co-Director of Opportunity Insights. Sprung-Keyser is a PhD candidate in Economics at Harvard.

View the research ►

When the Safety Net Pays for Itself

When the Safety Net Pays for Itself

July 22, 2019

Wall Street Journal | A new study by Harvard economists Nathaniel Hendren and Ben Sprung-Keyser examines 133 policy changes over the past half century and finds that programs for low-income children return taxpayer dollars over time. Hendren is Professor of Economics and a founding Co-Director of Opportunity Insights. Spring-Keyser is a PhD candidate in Economics at Harvard.

View the research ►

Raj Chetty

The Economist Who Would Fix the American Dream

July 17, 2019
The Atlantic | No one has done more to dispel the myth of social mobility than Raj Chetty. But he has a plan to make equality of opportunity a reality. A look at the work of Raj Chetty, William A. Ackman Professor of Economics at Harvard and Director of Opportunity Insights.