Marketwatch | Discusses new NBER working paper by economists Amanda Pallais, Paul Sack Associate Professor of Political Economy and Social Studies at Harvard, and Alexandre Mas of Princeton, which used a field experiment to study how workers valued alternative work arrangements.
View the research 

Christian Science Monitor | The number of temp, on-call, contract, and freelance workers is growing so rapidly, it may explain most of America's job growth in the last decade. Discusses findings from new NBER working paper by economists Lawrence Katz (Harvard) and Alan Krueger (Princeton), "The Rise and Nature of Alternative Work Arrangements in the US, 1995-2015." 
View the research (updated: Sept 13, 2016).

The Atlantic | Coverage of newly-released study by Judith Scott-Clayton (Ph.D. '09), Associate Professor of Economics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Jing Li, a research associate at Teachers College.

The Australian Financial Review | Andrew Leigh (Ph.D. '04), Australian Labor MP and Shadow Assistant Treasurer, held a question and answer session with French economist Thomas Piketty, who spoke at the Syndey Opera House on the question "Is Increasing Inequality Inevitable?" See also Andrew Leigh's earlier essay:

An Australian take on Thomas Piketty's 'Capital in the Twenty-first Century'
May 29, 2014
The Monthly | By Andrew Leigh (Ph.D. '04). Leigh notes that his own interest in studying long-run inequality was piqued by meeting Sir Tony Atkinson in the Harvard Inequality & Social Policy Seminar more than a decade earlier. Atkinson and Leigh subsequently collaborated on a set of papers examining inequality trends in Australia and New Zealand.

The New Yorker | What do we owe people in other countries who would like to come to this one?, Kelefa Sanneh asks. Discusses George J. Borjas's perspective, Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

WNYC—On the Media | Features Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted and John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences. Part 4 in On the Media's series, "Busted: America's Poverty Myths." [Audio and transcript]

Inside Higher Ed | Coverage of new study by Judith Scott-Clayton (Ph.D. '09), Associate Professor of Economics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. “'What was shocking was the magnitude of the debt four years after graduation. It’s huge,' said Scott-Clayton. Debt shouldn’t be seen as a bad word, she said, but the study indicates that the system isn’t working the same way for everyone.

"The study suggests that black graduates from the class of 2008 may have enrolled in graduate school at substantially higher rates than other groups did because of weak job markets. And more than a quarter of those graduate students enrolled in for-profit institutions, compared to 9 percent for white college graduates. 'That just begs the question what is going on in that sector,' Scott-Clayton said."

CBS MoneyWatch | Discusses new research by Boston College economist Claudia Olivetti and Dana Rotz (Ph.D. '12) of Mathematica Policy Research, who found that those who divorced at later ages were more likely to be still working full-time between the ages of 50 to 74. “A 10-year increase in age at divorce is associated with a three percentage points increase in the propensity of a woman to work full-time when observed between ages 50 and 74,” they wrote in the paper, which was published at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Having gone through a divorce “has long-run consequences for older women’s marital, work, and retirement decisions, above and beyond the impact of past divorce on current marital status.”
View the research

The White House (blog) | Post by CEA Chair Jason Furman cites findings of Sarah Cohodes (Ph.D. '15) and collaborators, who showed that having Medicaid or CHIP coverage in childhood substantially increases the likelihood of completing high school and college. Cohodes is now Assistant Professor of Education and Public Policy at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Marketwatch | Coverage of new study by Judith Scott-Clayton (Ph.D. '09), Associate Professor of Economics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
View the research

Wall Street Journal | Discusses findings of new paper by Judith Scott-Clayton (Ph.D. '09), Associate Professor of Economics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and co-author Jing Li, also of Columbia University. Their report, "Black-white disparity in student loan debt more than triples after graduation," was just released by the Brookings Institution.
View the research

Wall Street Journal | Review of George J. Borjas's new book, We Wanted Workers: Unraveling the Immigration Narrative. Borjas is the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

New York Magazine—The Science of Us | Delves into a new analysis by Bart Bonikowski, Associate Professor of Sociology at Harvard, and Paul DiMaggio of New York University, recently published in the American Sociological Review.
View the research... Read more about These are the 3 Types of American Nationalism

Pacific Standard | A look at new research by Devah Pager, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy and Director of the Inequality & Social Policy program, which found that businesses that were observed to be racially discriminatory in hiring were twice as likely to go out of business over a six-year period. The study appeared in Sociological Science.
View the research

CNN Money | A quiz app designed by behavioral economist Dan Ariely (Duke), Michael Norton (Harvard Business School), and David Grusky (Stanford). The article notes Ariely and Norton's 2013 viral video showing how skewed Americans' perceptions are of the wealth distribution in the US.

Wall Street Journal |  Discusses research by Daniel Shoag (Ph.D. '11), Associate Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Peter Ganong, NBER and Chicago-Harris.
View the research

Harvard Kennedy School |  "''Policymakers have an opportunity to use the evidence from behavioral science to craft comprehensive systems that invoke a wider range of accountability tools and have the potential to provide educators with the means to improve their practice at the same time that they promote constructive incentives,' says Jennifer Lerner, [Professor in the Management, Leadership, and Decision Science Area at the Harvard Kennedy School and Co-founder of the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory].

"A new research study published in Behavioral Science and Policy provides such evidence.  The study, “Reimagining accountability in K-12 education,” is co-authored by Brian P. Gill, Senior Fellow, Mathematica Policy Research; Professor Lerner; and Paul Meosky, Harvard College '16. They argue that a more multi-faceted and evidence-based approach – one that incorporates professional accountability – would prove a more successful method for improving public school performance."

Pacific Standard |  A new analysis by Bart Bonikowski of Harvard and Paul DiMaggio of New York University explains why it resonates with only a segment of the population. Discusses their article,"Varieties of American Popular Nationalism," forthcoming in the American Sociological Review. 
View the research

Washington Post | References new paper by Sendhil Mullinathan, Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics, and collaborators Jon Klein and Manish Raghavan, of Cornell University,  which explores inherent tradeoffs in the fair determination of risk scores. "These results," Mullainathan and his co-authors conclude, "suggest some of the ways in which key notions of fairness [in algorithmic classification] are incompatible with each other, and hence provide a framework for thinking about the trade-offs between them."
View the research 

Bloomberg | Discusses findings of new NBER paper by Claudia Olivetti of Boston College and Dana E Rotz (Ph.D. '12) of Mathematica Policy Research, "Changes in Marriage and Divorce as Drivers of Employment and Retirement of Older Women."
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