The Economist | Cites study by Devah Pager, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy, which examined the job performance of former felons in the U.S. Army.

The Weekly Standard | Review of George J. Borjas's book, We Wanted Workers (W.W. Norton, 2016). Borjas is Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

The Economist | Cites Todd Rogers, Associate Professor at Harvard Kennedy School. Also features work in which Elizabeth Linos (PhD '16) of  Behavioural Insights Team North America participated, a collaboration with the Chattanooga Police Department to attract more minority applicants to the force. (Read a detailed account of the Chattanooga experiment, including an interview with Linos, which appeared earlier this year in Quartz).

Bloomberg | Quoted: Behavioral economist Brigitte Madrian of the Harvard Kennedy School.

The New York Times | Cites study by Amitabh Chandra (joint with Jonathan Gruber and Robin McKnight), published in the American Economic Review. "For sicker Medicare beneficiaries, the Harvard economist Amitabh Chandra and colleagues found, increased Medicare hospital spending exceeded any savings from reduced drug prescriptions and doctor’s visits."

Harvard University Press | Ellora Derenoncourt, Ph.D. candidate in Economics, has authored a chapter in After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality, released today by Harvard University Press. Derenoncourt's contribution "addresses the deep historical and institutional origins of [global] wealth inequality, which she argues may be driven by what Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson identify as 'extractive' versus 'inclusive' institutions."

The 688-page volume, edited by Heather Boushey, J. Bradford DeLong, and Marshall Steinbaum, brings together published reviews by Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Robert Solow and newly-commissioned essays by Suresh Naidu, Laura Tyson, Michael Spence, Heather Boushey, Branko Milanovic, and many others. Emmanuel Saez lays out an agenda for future research on inequality, while a variety of essays examine the book's implications for the social sciences more broadly. Harvard Inequality & Social Policy alumna Elisabeth Jacobs (PhD '08), now senior director of research and a senior fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, probes the political dimension in her contribution, "Everywhere and Nowhere: Politics in Capital in the Twenty-First Century." Piketty replies in a substantial concluding chapter.

Huffington Post | Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children's Defense Fund, urges Congress to heed the evidence and invest in early childhood brain development, citing Ron Ferguson's work with the Boston Basics initiative and findings from Harvard's Center on the Developing Child. Ferguson is faculty director of Harvard's Achievement Gap Initiative and a fellow in the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy.

The New York Times | A new study by Amy Finkelstein (MIT), Nathaniel Hendren (Harvard Economics), and Matthew Shepard (Harvard Kennedy School) exploits a natural experiment from Massachusetts health insurance subsidies and finds that "as subsidies fall, insurance take-up falls rapidly" among low-income individuals.
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The Economist | Digs into new working paper by Dara Lee Luca (Mathematica Policy Research) and Michael Luca, Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School, "Survival of the Fittest: The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Firm Exit."
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The New York Times | Thomas B. Edsall column discusses a growing body of scholarly work showing that upper-middle class and affluent African-Americans have experienced substantial income gains within the past 15 years. Cites William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard, who has drawn attention to growing economic inequality and the increased heterogeneity of experience within the black community. Wilson is writing a book on upward social mobility among African-Americans.

National Science Foundation | Blythe George, PhD candidate in Sociology and Social Policy, has been awarded a National Science Foundation doctoral dissertation research grant for her doctoral dissertation work on "Employment of Native Americans with Criminal Records."

National Science Foundation | Barbara Kiviat, PhD candidate in Sociology and Social Policy, has been awarded a National Science Foundation doctoral dissertation research grant for her PhD dissertation, "The Moral Foundations of the Big Data Economy." Learn more about Barbara Kiviat's research at barbarakiviat.com.

The 74 | jal Mehta (PhD '06), Associate Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has been selected one of The 74's 12 changemakers of 2017.

Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston | By Beth E. Schueler (Doctoral candidate in Education), Joshua S. Goodman (Harvard Kennedy School), and David Deming (HGSE). A policy brief based on their research findings, which "provide encouraging evidence that accountability-driven improvement of chronically underperforming districts is possible."

The Hamilton Project | By Nora E. Gordon (Ph.D. '02), Associate Professor of Public Policy, Georgetown University.

The Century Foundation | By Irwin Garfinkel, David Harris, Jane Waldfogel (all Columbia University), and Christopher Wimer (Ph.D. '07, now Co-Director of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia's Population Research Center). 

The Saguaro Seminar—Harvard Kennedy School | In 2015, the Saguaro Seminar, led by Robert D. Putnam, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, launched the Closing the Opportunity Gap initiative. The initiative convened five working groups of the country’s leading experts in each of five areas: family and parenting, early childhood, K-12 education, community institutions, and “on-ramps” (like community college or apprenticeships).

Patrick Sharkey (Ph.D. '07) of New York University, a contributor to the community working group, co-authored the chapter on "Rebuilding Communities to Help Close the Opportunity Gap."

e21 | By Scott Winship (Ph.D. '09), Walter B. Wriston fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Council of Economic Advisers | Inequality (chapter 1) and early childhood disparities (chapter 4) were a central focus of this year's annual report, drawing extensively on research by many Inequality & Social Policy faculty and alumni. We are particularly partial to p. 182, which cites work by (then) doctoral fellow Sarah Cohodes et. al., "The Effect of Child Health Insurance Access on Schooling." Cohodes (Ph.D. '15) is now an Assistant Professor of Education and Public Policy at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Center for American Progress | New research by Richard B. Freeman and collaborators suggests that about one-third of the decline in the share of middle class workers is directly tied to the decreasing share of workers in unions. "The big question this research raises for Americans troubled by the decline of the middle class is whether the growth and level of inequality can be reduced without a strong labor movement,” said Freeman, Herbert Anchorman Professor of Economics at Harvard.
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Scholars Strategy Network | By Katherine Levine Einstein (Ph.D. '12). This brief summarizes research forthcoming in the  American Journal of Political Science. Read the research here ▶

Manhattan Institute | By Scott Winship (Ph.D. '09)

LSE U.S. Centre | By Jackelyn Hwang (Ph.D. '15, now a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University).

HKS Working Paper Series | By George Borjas.

Harvard Kennedy School | Amitabh Chandra

JAMA (Research Letter) | By Brendan Saloner (Ph.D. '12, now a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and Shankar Karthikeyan (also Bloomberg School of Public Health).

Gov Innovator Podcast | Andy Feldman (Ph.D. '07) interviews Jens Ludwig, Director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

The Hamilton Project  | Amitabh Chandra, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, participated in a policy forum addressing economic challenges in an evolving health care market, with a focus on three new papers released in conjunction with the event. The event, held at The Brookings Institution, featured opening remarks by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, and framing remarks by CEA Chairman Jason Furman.  View papers, presentation slides, and event video online.

Gov Innovator Podcast | Andrew Feldman (Ph.D. '07) interviews Maya Shankar, Chair of the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team.

National Academy of Sciences | Mary C. Waters chaired the national panel of experts who wrote the 520-page report, which is to be published by The National Academies Press. View the Report in Brief (6 pp) ► 

Social and Behavioral Sciences Team | Daniel Hopkins (Ph.D. '07)... Read more about Daniel Hopkins serves as fellow with White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team

Brookings Institution—Brown Center Chalkboard | By Ann Owens (Ph.D. '12)

Harvard Kennedy School: Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston | By Anthony A. Braga (Rutgers) and David M. Hureau (Ph.D. candidate in Sociology & Social Policy). This Policy Brief draws directly from the forthcoming article, Anthony A. Braga and David M. Hureau. 2015. “Strong Gun Laws Are Not Enough: The Need for Improved Enforcement of Secondhand Gun Transfer Laws in Massachusetts.” Preventative Medicine 79 (October) 37-42. ►