New York Magazine—The Science of Us | Discusses the research behind a recent Wall Street Journal column by behavioral researchers Cassie Mogilner Holmes (UCLA) and Michael Norton (Harvard Business School).

The Trace | Cites David Hureau (Ph.D. '16), Assistant Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at SUNY Albany and an affiliate of the University of Chicago Crime Lab:

What criminals want is “not significantly different from what the average gun owner interested wants,” according to David Hureau, a criminologist at SUNY-Albany, who has interviewed people seeking guns on the black market. Like the majority of gun owners interviewed in the Harvard/Northeastern survey, Hureau’s research subjects choose to carry guns because “they’re fundamentally engaged in self-protection.”

Slate | Discusses new study by economist Amanda Pallais of Harvard, coauthored with Leonardo Bursztyn  of the University of Chicago and Thomas Fujiwara of Princeton, which "found that single women in an elite MBA program responded to a career survey with lower salary targets and acceptable levels of work travel if they thought their responses might be visible to their classmates.

View the research: "'Acting Wife': Marriage Market Incentives and Labor Market Investments."

Chicago Reader | The odds of winning in eviction court are stacked against tenants; a lack of transparency is part of the problem, writes Maya Dukmasova. Cites Evicted by Harvard sociologist Matthew Desmond on the role of evictions as a major contributing factor to entering and remaining entrenched in poverty.

The New York Times | Lawrence Katz quoted. “Over the long haul, clearly automation’s been much more important — it’s not even close,” said  Katz, an economics professor at Harvard who studies labor and technological change.

Labor economists say there are ways to ease the transition for workers whose jobs have been displaced by robots...Few are policies that Mr. Trump has said he will pursue. “Just allowing the private market to automate without any support is a recipe for blaming immigrants and trade and other things, even when it’s the long-[run] impact of technology,” said Mr. Katz, who was the Labor Department’s chief economist under President Clinton.

New York Magazine—Science of Us | A look at the research on emotions and consumption by psychologist Jennifer S. Lerner, a Professor in the Management, Leadership, and Decision Science Area at the Harvard Kennedy School and Co-founder of the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory.

Time.com | Interview with behavioral scientist Todd Rogers (HKS), co-author of a new study on "paltering" with Richard Zeckhauser (HKS), Francesca Gino (HBS), and Michael I. Norton (HBS), which appears in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
View the research

The Economist | Cites research by Peter Ganong and Daniel Shoag on the dramatic decline in regional income convergence in the U.S. over the past 30 years. Shoag (Ph.D. '11) is Associate Profesor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Ganong is a postdoctoral fellow at NBER and (beginning fall 2017) Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy.
​​​​​​​View the research

Harvard Magazine | Excerpt from David A. Moss's forthcoming book, Democracy: A Case Study, available in January from Harvard University Press:

"[D]emocratic decision-making in the United States has nearly always been rooted in disagreement and tension, including plenty of bare-knuckle politics...The critical question is what makes this conflict either constructive or destructive...In most periods across the nation’s history, it has served as a powerful source of strength. But not always. And this, in a nutshell, is what we need to figure out. Why has fierce political conflict proved highly constructive at many historical moments and severely destructive at others, and which type of conflict…characterizes the nation’s democracy today?"

Moss is the Paul Whiton Cherington Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and founder of The Tobin Project.... Read more about Open Book: Bare-Knuckle Politics

The Ezra Klein Show | Interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates, who discusses his cover article in the current issue of the Atlantic based on hours of interviews with President Obama about the role race played in Obama’s upbringing, his presidency, and the 2016 campaign. Asked about "a few of the data points" that have influenced his thinking, Coates cites work of Harvard sociologists Robert Sampson on neighborhoods and Devah Pager on discrimination in the labor market.

Harvard Gazette | Harvard sociology course,“Reinventing (and Reimagining) Boston: The Changing American City,” is featured. Taught by Robert Sampson, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, and David Luberoff, a lecturer on sociology and Senior Associate Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard.

The Atlantic | Cover article by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Jan-Feb 2017 print issue) cites research by Judith Scott-Clayton (Ph.D. '09) and Patrick Sharkey (Ph.D. '07). Judith Scott-Clayton, now Associate Professor of Economics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, found that "black graduates [hold] nearly $53,000 in student loan debt four years after graduation—almost twice as much as their white counterparts, and that "black college graduates are still substantially more likely to default on their debt within four years of graduation (7.6 percent versus 2.4 percent of white graduates)." Learn more about this research, which Scott-Clayton wrote about for the Brookings Institution "Evidence Speaks" series in October 2016. 

Coates also cites Patrick Sharkey, Professor of Sociology at New York University, whose book, Stuck in Place (University of Chicago Press, 2013), showed that black families making $100,000 a year or more live in more-disadvantaged neighborhoods than white families making less than $30,000.

Associated Press | Quoted: Leah Wright Rigueur, Assistant Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Bloomberg Markets | Roundup of new research highlights "The New Lifecycle of Women's Employment," by Claudia Goldin, Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard, and Joshua Mitchell (Ph.D '11), Senior Economist, U.S. Census Bureau.
​​​​​​​View the research... Read more about She works hard for the money

The Atlantic—CityLab | The odds that kids will do better than their parents have plummeted. One possible fix: Learn from the neighborhoods in which income mobility is still thriving. Features new study and earlier research by economists Raj Chetty of Stanford and Nathaniel Hendren of Harvard from their Equality of Opportunity project. 

The 74 | Features Ann Owens (Ph.D. '12) and findings of her work, which has examined racial and income segregation in schools. Owens is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Spatial Sciences at USC and a 2016-17 NAEd/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow.

Wall Street Journal | Our minds play tricks on us, limiting the effectiveness of our efforts. Cites study in Science by Michael I. Norton, Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and collaborators Elizabeth W. Dunn and Laura B. Aknin, both of University of British Columbia, which showed that spending money on others promotes happiness.
​​​​​​​View the research

The Atlantic | Features Robert Manduca, Ph.D. student in Sociology & Social Policy, a co-author of the study discussed in this article. The findings come from a new paper out of the Equality of Opportunity project, led by economists Raj Chetty of Stanford and Nathaniel Hendren of Harvard.
View the research

The Atlantic—CityLab | Delves into a major recent study by Robert J. Sampson, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, which examines the spatial foundations of persistent inequality. The study referenced in the article is part of the volume Economic Mobility, a new publication released by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
View the research

Business Insider | Do cash transfers to the poor lead to increased purchase of "temptation goods"? New study by David Evans (Ph.D. '05), a senior economist at the World Bank, and Anna Popova of Stanford University examines the evidence from Africa, Asia, and Latin America and concludes no. Their work is forthcoming the in the journal Economic Development and Cultural Change.
View the research

The Booklist Reader | One in a series of interviews with each of the finalists for the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard.

The New York Times Book Review
Poets, musicians, diplomats, filmmakers, novelists, actors, and artists share the books that accompanied them through 2016. "There was a lot of great nonfiction in 2016," writes novelist Ann Patchett, "but there are four books that I recommend with a sense of urgency"—among them, Evicted, by Matthew Desmond, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences.

Former U.S. Representative Barney Frank notes two pieces of conventional wisdom—one domestic; the other international—that have structured our national debates for deades. Subjecting the received wisdom to close examintion: The Globalization Paradox, by Dani Rodrik, Ford Foundation Professor of Political Economy at the Harvard Kennedy School, 

The New Yorker | Among them, Evicted, by Matthew Desmond, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences.

PEN America | Evicted, by Matthew Desmond, is one of 10 books on the 2017 PEN America longlist in nonfiction for the John Kenneth Galbraith award. Finalists for this biennial award will be announced on January 18, 2017. The winner will be announced on February 22, 2017 and honored at the 2017 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on March 27, 2017. Desmond is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Science at Harvard.

Bloomberg | Angus Deaton, awarded the 2015 Nobel prize in Economics, recommends Matthew Desmond's Evicted, together with $2.00 a Day, by Kathryn Edin and H. Luke Shaefer. 

Boston Globe | Matthew Desmond's Evicted is selected as one of the year's best in nonfiction. Desmond is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard.

The New York Times Book Review | Matthew Desmond's Evicted is among this year's 10 Best Books, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review. Desmond is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard.

AAPSS | Lawrence D. Bobo, the W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences, is one of five newly-elected Fellows to join the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 2017. The AAPSS, one of the nation's oldest learned societies, recognized Bobo's research contributions as having "quantified, qualified, and illuminated understandings about social inequality, politics, racism and attitudes about race in America."

The 2017 Fellows also include Martha Minow (Dean of Harvard Law School), Margaret Levi (Stanford University), Timothy Smeeding (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Claude Steele (University of California-Berkeley).

The Week (UK) | Matthew Desmond's Evicted is one of 21 recommended books for 2016. Desmond in the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard.

Washington Post | Matthew Desmond's Evicted is selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2016: "In spare and beautiful prose, Desmond chronicles the economic and psychological devastation of substandard housing in America and the cascading misfortunes that come with losing one’s home...In this extraordinary feat of reporting and ethnography, Desmond has made it impossible ever again to consider poverty in the United States without tackling the central role of housing."

Desmond is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard.

Harvard Gazette | Renowned political philosopher Danielle Allen, director of Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, professor of government in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), and professor of education at the Graduate School of Education, has been named a University Professor, Harvard’s highest faculty honor.

Awardee | Maya Sen, Assistant Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, and co-authors Avidit Acharya (Stanford) and Matthew Blackwell (Harvard Government Department), have been awarded the Joseph Bernd Award for the best article published in Journal of Politics in 2016. Their article, "The Political Legacy of American Slavery," is available open access.
View article (PDF)

Matthew Desmond's Evicted is one of six books (3 fiction, 3 nonfiction) named to the Shortlist for the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. The citation reads, "This is essential reading for anyone interested in social justice, poverty, and feminist issues, but its narrative nonfiction style will also draw general readers—and will hopefully spark national discussion."  The two medal winners will be announced January 22, 2017. Desmond is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Sciences at Harvard.

... Read more about Simon Jäger: Upjohn Institute 2016 Dissertation Award

The Boston Globe | Leah Wright Rigueur's book, The Loneliness of the Black Republican (Princeton University Press, 2014), will be honored by the New England Historical Association at its annual conference on October 22. Rigueur, an Assistant Professor af the Harvard Kennedy School, will receive the James P. Hanlan book award, which recognizes the work of an historian, focusing on any area of historical scholarship, who lives and works in New England.

Awardees | Harvard's Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning announced the recipients of its Certificates of Distinction in teaching for spring 2016, which included Inequality & Social Policy doctoral fellows Aaron Benavidez (Sociology), Jack Cao (Psychology), Oren Danieli (Business Economics), Kelley Fong (Sociology & Social Policy), Margot Moinester (Sociology), and Alix Winter (Sociology & Social Policy). The recipients will be honored at a reception on Wed, Oct 19th from 4-5:30 pm in CGIS-South.

Washington Post | Matthew Desmond's Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City has been selected as one of  six finalists in non-fiction for this year's Kirkus Prizes. Of the 18 finalists in all, three winners will be announced at a special ceremony in Austin on November 3. Desmond, a sociologist, is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard.

... Read more about James Feigenbaum: Economic History Association 2016 Allan Nevins Dissertation Prize

Awardee | Jessica Simes (Ph.D. in Sociology '16), now an assistant professor at Boston University, has been awarded the first of two newly-endowed University Provost Career Development Professorships at that institution.  The three-year University Provost’s Career Development Professorships will support two junior faculty working in academic areas with “the greatest potential for impacting the quality and stature of the University, as determined by the provost." Simes, whose Harvard doctoral dissertation focused on racial inequality and the mass incarceration of African Americans, was recognized for her work in data science—"specifically the mapping of communities to reflect the percentage of incarcerated people—[which] has been the backbone of Simes’s research on race, poverty, and mass incarceration." Learn more about her research at her homepage.

CIFAR | Natalie Bau (Ph.D. in Public Policy, '15) is one of 18 exceptional early-career researchers from diverse science and social science fields selected to the inaugural cohort of the new CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars Program, sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars receive two-year appointments with one of 14 research programs—in Bau's case, Institutions, Organizations, and Growth.

An Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto, Bau studies development and education economics, with an emphasis on the industrial organization of education markets. 

Natalie Bau homepage

Foreign Affairs | By Douglas W. Elmendorf. "The development and passage of the ACHA is a case study in how not to make public policy," writes Elmendorf. Douglas Elmendorf is Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School and Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy. He served as the director of the Congressional Budget Office from January 2009 through March 2015.

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis | Robert Putnam, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, joined the inaugural conference of the Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute, where he spoke in the opening panel on segregation and inequality. Putnam and Harvard economist Lawrence Katz both serve on the Institute's Board of Advisors.

Why Opportunity and Inclusion Matter to America's Economic Strength
Lael Brainard of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors delivered the keynote address, highlighting issues of employment, household financial health, the geography of opportunity, and affordable housing. She also drew attention to insights generated by the Boston Fed's Workng Cities Challenge.
View text of remarks
 

Earlier this spring Governor Brainard delivered the 2017 Malcolm Wiener Lecture in International Political Economy in the JFK Jr. Forum at Harvard Kennedy School.

Harvard Kennedy School PolicyCast | Professor David Deming (PhD '10) sits down with PolicyCast host Matt Cadwallader to talk about his new Harvard Kennedy School course, The Causes and Consequences of Inequality (SUP-206). If traditional jobs like manufacturing aren’t coming back, how can the economy adapt? How can the American education system better prepare the next generation for the needs of the modern economy? Deming's research grapples with these questions.

Harvard Gazette | This past fall, Harvard President Drew Faust convened a University-wide task force to examine ways to help Harvard thrive as a place where all members of its increasingly diverse community feel that they truly belong. The task force is co-chaired by James Bryant Conant University Professor Danielle Allen, director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics; Harvard Kennedy School Academic Dean Archon Fung, the Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship; and Vice President for Campus Services Meredith Weenick.

The task force’s co-chairs recently sat down with the Harvard Gazette to discuss this report, their first year, and what’s next for this important work.

U.S. Congress Joint Economic Commitee | Professors Robert D. Putnam and Mario L. Small (PhD '01), joined by Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute and Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs, testified before the Joint Economic Committee on the potential role for social capital in addressing U.S. economic and social challenges.

Robert Putnam, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, focused on two generational concerns: why social capital matters in narrowing the opportunity gap among today's children, and what a boomer generation "aging alone" portends for U.S. eldercare costs in the years ahead.
Read Robert Putnam testimony

Mario Small, Grafstein Family Professor of Sociology, discussed the evidence that "early education and childcare programs may be an especially effective venue to help low-income parents generate social capital,"..." that this social capital is beneficial, and that there is reason to believe that targeted interventions may help such programs maximize these benefits."
Read Mario Small testimony

Gov Innovator Podcast | Andy Feldman (PhD '07) interviews Carrie Conaway (AM '01), Chief Strategy and Research Officer for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Conaway was recently appointed by President Barack Obama to the National Board for Education Sciences. Feldman is currently a visiting fellow with the Center for Children and Families at the Brookings Institution.

The 74 | Professor David Deming (PhD '10) on the lasting benefits of Head Start, school accountability, and integration. Deming is a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The New York Times Magazine
By Matthew Desmond, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences.
 

Brookings Institution—The Brown Center Chalkboard | By Martin R. West (Faculty, Ph.D. '06)

Russell Sage Foundation | By Christopher Wimer (Ph.D. '07)

Congressional testimony| Testimony of  Scott Winship (Ph.D. '09) before Subcommittee on Human Resources, Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives.

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston | By Alicia Sasser Modestino (Ph.D. '01), Daniel Shoag (Ph.D. '11), and Joshua Ballance

Usable Knowledge (HGSE) | Interview with Ron Ferguson

The Journalist's Resource | Katherine Levine Einstein (Ph.D. '12)

Global Development Network | By Dan Honig, Ph.D. candidate in Public Policy. Award-winning essay of GDN Next Horizons Essay Competition.

Congressional Testimony | Testimony of Justin Wolfers (Ph.D. '01) before Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate.

Washington Center for Equitable Growth | By Elisabeth Jacobs

Scholars Strategy Network | By Lawrence R. Jacobs and Theda Skocpol

Brookings Institution—The Brown Center Chalkboard | By Matthew M. Chingos and Martin R. West (Faculty, Ph.D. '06)

Scholars Strategy Network | By Theda Skocpol

Poverty and Race Research Action Council | By Eva Rosen (Ph.D. '14)

Brookings Institution—The Brown Center Chalkboard | By Martin R. West (Faculty, Ph.D. '06)

Journalist's Resource | William Julius Wilson, Robert Sampson

Washington Center for Equitable Growth | By Elisabeth Jacobs

Boston University Initiative on Cities | By Katherine Levine Einstein (Ph.D. '12) and David M. Glick

Scholars Strategy Network | by Judith Scott-Clayton (Ph.D. '09)

Scholars Strategy Network | By Jackelyn Hwang, Ph.D. candidate in Sociology & Social Policy.

Journalist's Resource | Joshua Goodman