Association for Education Finance and Policy | Alumna Carrie Conaway was elected president of AEFP at its 42nd annual conference in Washington, D.C. Conaway is the chief strategy and research officer for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. She was recently appointed by President Barack Obama to the National Board for Education Sciences.

L.A. Weekly | Jared Schachner, Ph.D. student in Sociology & Social Policy, discusses findings of a new study co-authored with Harvard's Robert J. Sampson, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, and Robert D. Mare of UCLA. Their article, "Urban Income Inequality and the Great Recession in Sunbelt Form," appears in a new RSF Journal issue on "Spatial Foundations of Inequality."
View the research

The New York Times | Quotes and cites research by Judith Scott-Clayton (Ph.D. '09), Associate Professor of Economics and Education at Columbia University Teachers College, and Susan Dynarski (University of Michigan) showing that lower-income students suffer disproportionately from inefficient complexity in financial aid.
View the research

The New York Times | "Another academic discipline may not have the ear of presidents but may actually do a better job of explaining what has gone wrong in large swaths of the United States and other advanced nations in recent years," argues Economic View columnist Neil Irwin. Features Harvard sociologist Michèle Lamont and highlights the lessons about poverty that Matthew Desmond's Evicted has illuminated. 

The New York Times | Women have fared better than men in adapting to a changing labor market. Cites David Deming (Ph.D.'10), Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and his work on the growing importance of social skills in the labor market. Also quoted: Richard Freeman, Herbert Ascherman Professor of Economics.
View the research

Harvard Business School | Discusses a new article published in Science by Assistant Professor Ariel D. Stern (Ph.D. '14) of Harvard Business School, Associate Professor Brian M. Alexander of Harvard Medical School, and Amitabh Chandra, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.
View the article in Science

TPM: Talking Points Memo | Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendor and other budget experts assess what the CBO got right and what it got wrong in its 2010 projections for the Affordable Care Act. Elmendorf served as director of the Congressional Budget Office from January 2009 to March 2015.

Vox | CBO’s score of Republicans’ health plan is out, and it looks grim. Here’s why the agency has such influence, explains Vox. Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2009 to 2015 and now Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, is among those interviewed.

FiveThirtyEight | Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology, provides perspective. Skocpol is co-author with Vanessa Williamson (Ph.D. '15), now a fellow at the Brookings Institution, of The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism (Oxford University Press, 2012)

The New York Times | Editorial cites "a 2016 report by the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, [which] found that raising the age for adult prosecution produced sharp reductions in arrests, court caseloads and incarceration costs. Sixteen-year-olds who are tried as juveniles are less likely to be rearrested than those tried as adults. And arrests for people under 18 dropped by an astonishing 68 percent while the crime rate has continued to decline."

Lael Chester (Research Fellow) and Vincent Schiraldi (Senior Research Fellow) of the Malcolm Wiener Center's Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management authored the report.

Boston Globe | Four books with lessons for today's protestors, including Daniel Schlozman's  When Movements Anchor Parties: Electoral Alignments in American History (Princeton University Press, 2015), winner of the 2016 Charles Tilly Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award from the ASA's Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section. Schlozman (Ph.D. 11) is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University.

The New York Times | Daniel Carpenter, Allie S. Freed Professor of Government, comments on the possible nomination of Scott Gottlieb to head the Food and Drug Administration. Carpenter studies the FDA.

Washington Post | Quoted: Bart Bonikowski, Associate Professor of Sociology.

Harvard Gazette | Jeffrey Liebman, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Public Policy and cirector of the Government Performance Lab at Harvard Kennedy School, discusses new projects with state governments in California, Connecticut, and Illinois that aim to alleviate poverty, increase family stability, combat recidivism, and improve higher education.

The New York Times | Discusses a new study by David Autor (MIT), David Dorn (University of Zurich), Lawrence Katz (Harvard), Christina Patterson (MIT), and John Van Reenen (MIT), forthcoming in American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings.

“What’s different about new superstar firms is they don’t have the cadre of middle-class jobs for nonelite workers,” said Mr. Katz, an economics professor at Harvard. “That’s very worrisome,” he said, adding that “the trend is going on in country after country.”
View the research

San Francisco Chronicle | Quoted: Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Professor of History, Race, and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School.

Pop Matters | Deep dive into Natasha Warikoo's new book, The Diversity Bargain and Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Warikoo (Ph.D. '15), Associate Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The New York Times | Quoted: Lawrence Katz, Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics. Also cites research by David Deming (Ph.D. '10), "The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market." Deming is a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Graduate School of Education.
View the research

Business Insider | Cites research by behavioral scientist Todd Rogers, Associate Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School (joint with Avi Feller, UC Berkeley).
View the research

American Historical Association—AHA Today | Recap of the American Historical Association's plenary session, "Election 2016: How Did We Get Here and What Does it Mean?," featuring Leah Wright Rigueur, Assistant Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School.

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