HOME / NEWS / FACULTY /

In the News

Outsourcing U.S. Jobs

How U.S. Companies Stole American Jobs

June 16, 2017

Harvard Magazine | Domestic subcontracting, not globalization, has redefined employer-employee ties. Alternative work arrangements now encompass 16% of the U.S. workforce. Finding ways to make these jobs more meaningful and more rewarding will be key to building a robust workforce, says Lawrence Katz, Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics. 
View the research here and here.

Mariel boatlift

The Great Mariel Boatlift Debate: Does Immigration Lower Wages?

June 16, 2017
Wall Street Journal | Decades after a wave of Cuban refugees landed in Florida, a dispute among economists over their economic impact. On one side of the debate: George J. Borjas, Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.
Gender Wage Gap Widens to 43 Percent by Age 45

Gender Wage Gap Widens to 43 Percent by Age 45

June 14, 2017
NBC News | Features new research by Harvard economist Claudia Goldin and colleagues. "Women are disproportionately losing out during these periods of time when families are being formed,” Goldin says. “...It really takes two sides here to make that market. So if all the guys said ‘We also want to see our kids, we also want temporal flexibility,’ then this difference wouldn’t exist.”
The club where business meets gender politics

The club where business meets gender politics

June 9, 2017
Financial Times | Women-only spaces in the US have had a new lease of life in the age of Trump. Cited: Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol, who is now studying post-Trump activism in swing states: "I can tell you so far, the evidence is just overwhelming. Women are leading these so-called resist groups and networks. In pockets across the country, there's movement happening everywhere, and women are overwhelmingly in the lead."
Female MBA's: Downplaying ambitions?

Female MBA's: Downplaying ambitions?

June 5, 2017
The Economist | Discusses research by Harvard economist Amanda Pallais on how marriage market incentives influence women's labor market investments, forthcoming in the American Economic Review. Pallais is the Paul Sack Associate Professor of Political Economy and Social Studies.
View the research
The gender pay gap

The Gender Pay Gap Is Largely Because of Motherhood

May 27, 2017
The New York Times | Features research on the gender pay gap by Harvard economist Claudia Goldin, including a new paper—joint with Sari Pekkala Kerr of Wellesley College, Claudia Olivetti of Boston College, and Erling Barth of the Institute for Social Research in Oslo—in the May 2017 issue of American Economic Review.
View the research
PBS NewsHour Making Sen$e

Anger or fear: which is worse?

May 24, 2017
PBS NewHour | Economics correspondent Paul Solman explores the biology of leadership in this week's Making Sen$e broadcast. Here he delves more deeply into psychologist Jennifer Lerner's research on fear and anger in a print interview. Jennifer Lerner is Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and Co-Founder of the Harvard Decision Sciences Laboratory.
Commencement banner 2017

“The Value of Noticing”

May 23, 2017

Harvard Magazine | In her Baccalaureate address to graduating seniors, Harvard University President Drew Faust drew from Sendhil Mullainathan's recent column in The New York Times on the cognitive biases that shape our responses to problems of ineqauality and opportunity:

 

As one of your economics professors, Sendhil Mullainathan, recently pointed out in a column in The New York Times, we remember the headwinds that blow against us and forget the tailwinds that help us along. Notice and be grateful for those tailwinds How often do we remind ourselves that to some degree we won a global lottery over which we had no control? “The most important things that happened to me here happened to me by accident,” one of you said. There is a responsibility that comes with recognizing that.

Young men falling to the bottom of the income ladder

Young men falling to the bottom of the income ladder

May 22, 2017
Boston Globe | Quotes Lawrence Katz, Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics: "People from elite colleges moving to Wall Street and top law firms and to tech companies are doing perfectly fine. In fact, they're doing much better than comparable people in their parents' generation," Katz said. "But for the typical young man, they're donig substantially worse economically than their father."