How Health, Family, and Employment Laws Spread Across Countries

Katerina Linos (Ph.D. '07)
Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law.

Oxford University Press, 2013.
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• Winner of the 2014 APSA Giovanni Sartori Prize for best book on qualitative methods.
• Winner of the 2014 International Studies Association Chadwick Alger Prize for best book on international organization and multilateralism.
• Winner of the 2014 Peter Katzenstein Prize for outstanding first book in international relations or comparative politics. 
• Selected among the Best Books of 2013 on Western Europe by Foreign Affairs.

View author's Book Talk: Harvard Law School Library
With panelists Noah Feldman, Amartya Sen, and Beth Simmons.

How Working Families Make Ends Meet in a Post-Welfare World

Sarah Halpern-Meekin (Ph.D. '09)
Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Kathryn Edin
Distinguished Bloomberg Professor, Johns Hopkins University.

Laura Tach (Ph.D. '10)
Assistant Professor of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University.

Jennifer Sykes (Ph.D. '11)
Assistant Professor of Social Relations and Policy, James Madison College, Michigan State University.

University of California Press, 2015.
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Join three of the authors for a webinar  
Sponsored by the Institute for Research on Poverty
University of Wisconsin-Madison, January 21, 2015.
View the webinar

In this webinar, Sarah Halpern-Meekin (Ph.D. '09), Kathryn Edin, and Laura Tach (Ph.D. '10) discuss their new book, It's Not Like I'm Poor, which details how everyday Americans have gotten by since welfare reform's sweeping transformation in the 1990's.

Via the dramatic expansion of tax credits for low-income workers, the economic fortunes of one group of poor households, the working poor, have been bolstered as never before. "Hitting the lottery" at tax time doesn't erase the month-to-month challenges of making ends meet on meager wages; nonetheless, the new welfare system makes the dream of a middle-class life feel more tangible.

Pictured: Sarah Halpern-Meekin, Kathryn Edin, and Laura Tach.

Criminal Convictions and the Decline of Neighborhood Political Participation

Traci Burch (Ph.D. '07)
Associate Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University.
Research Professor, American Bar Foundation.

University of Chicago Press, 2013.
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• Winner of the Ralph Bunche Book Award, American Political Science Association, 2014.
  
  
• Winner of the Urban Politics Best Book Award, American Political Science Association, 2014.
  
  
• Winner of the C.Herman Pritchett Award for Best Book in the field of law and courts, American Political Science Association.
  
  

About the book. The United States imprisons far more people, total and per capita, and at a higher rate than any other country in the world. Among the more than 1.5 million Americans currently incarcerated, minorities and the poor are disproportionately represented. What’s more, they tend to come from just a few of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in the country. While the political costs of this phenomenon remain poorly understood, it’s become increasingly clear that the effects of this mass incarceration are much more pervasive than previously thought, extending beyond those imprisoned to the neighbors, family, and friends left behind.

For Trading Democracy for Justice, Traci Burch has drawn on data from neighborhoods with imprisonment rates up to fourteen times the national average to chart demographic features that include information about imprisonment, probation, and parole, as well as voter turnout and volunteerism. She presents powerful evidence that living in a high-imprisonment neighborhood significantly decreases political participation. Similarly, people living in these neighborhoods are less likely to engage with their communities through volunteer work. What results is the demobilization of entire neighborhoods and the creation of vast inequalities—even among those not directly affected by the criminal justice system.

The first book to demonstrate the ways in which the institutional effects of imprisonment undermine already disadvantaged communities, Trading Democracy for Justice speaks to issues at the heart of democracy.

The American Record

Edited by

Leah Platt Boustan (Ph.D. '06)
Associate Professor of Economics, UCLA.

Carola Frydman (Ph.D. '06)
Asst. Professor of Economics, Boston University.

Robert A. Margo
Professor of Economics, Boston University.

University of Chicago Press, 2014.
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Preview the book.

About the book. America’s expansion to one of the richest nations in the world was partly due to a steady increase in labor productivity, which in turn depends upon the invention and deployment of new technologies and on investments in both human and physical capital. The accumulation of human capital—the knowledge and skill of workers—has featured prominently in American economic leadership over the past two centuries.

Human Capital in History brings together contributions from leading researchers in economic history, labor economics, the economics of education, and related fields. Building on Claudia Goldin’s landmark research on the labor history of the United States, the authors consider the roles of education and technology in contributing to American economic growth and well-being, the experience of women in the workforce, and how trends in marriage and family affected broader economic outcomes. The volume provides important new insights on the forces that affect the accumulation of human capital.