Bloomberg View | Cass R. Sunstein column urges progressives and conservatives to escape their respective echo chambers by reading the best of each otther's work. Here he recommends five for conservatives, including Scarcity: Why Having Less Means So Much, by Sendhil Mullainathan (Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics) and Eldar Shafir (Princeton University).

"Mullainathan and Shafir demonstrate that these diverse forms of scarcity have something important in common: They take over our minds, leaving us with limited “bandwidth.”...Mullainathan and Shafir show why many public policy initiatives, which impose “bandwidth taxes” (for example, by making people fill out complex forms to receive financial assistance), turn out to be unhelpful and even counterproductive."... Read more about Five Books to Change Conservatives' Minds

FiveThirtyEight | Four reasons why HUD and housing policy matter—for poverty, homeownership and affordability, and in fighting discrimination and segregation. Cites research by Matthew Desmond, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard, and notes that Desmond's work was instrumental in getting eviction-related questions added to the 2017 American Housing Survey. 

Harvard Gazette | Bruce Western, Professor of Sociology and Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice Policy, Vincent Schiraldi, Senior Research Fellow with the Malcolm Wiener Center's Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, and Judge Nancy Gertner, Senior Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School, relate their experience with criminal justice policy in a seminar aimed at reducing the country's bloated prison population. 

The Atlantic—CityLab | Draws from work by economists Ray Fisman, Boston University, and Michael Luca, Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School. Their article, "Fixing Discrimination in Online Marketplaces," featured in last month's roundup, appears in the Harvard Business Review.

The JFK Jr Forum  | Vivek H. Murthy, United States Surgeon General, joined Amitabh Chandra, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy, at the JFK Jr. Forum for a conversation on America's healthcare issues relating to opioid addiction, gun violence, and changes to healthcare laws under the new administration. Co-sponsored by the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy.
Watch video ▶

Claremont Review of Books | Review of George J. Borjas's We Wanted Workers, by Christopher Caldwell. Borjas is the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

The American Prospect | Two new books explore how difficult the housing market and criminal justice system make it to climb out of poverty. Adam D. Reich of Columbia University reviews Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciencest at Harvard, and A Pound of Flesh: Monetary Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor, by Alexis Harris, University of Washington.

Vox | Quotes Edward Glaeser, Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics: "This is unlikely to do much for road and bridge maintenance...And [economists] have long believed that the highest returns are for fixing existing infrastructure.”

“If [we] only built projects that could cover their costs with user charges, we would have far fewer white elephant projects,” says Harvard’s Glaeser. “However, we would also miss good projects as well. In particular, we would miss projects that mainly serve the less advantaged. Asking buses to pay for themselves would be a mistake.”

The New York Times Book Review | Review of Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migrants in Northern Cities and Labor Markets, by Leah Platt Boustan (Ph.D. '06), Professor of Economics at UCLA, and Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform, by Tommie Shelby, Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy at Harvard.

The New Yorker | Cites research by psychologists Michael Norton of Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of Duke University, which found that people "routinely underestimated existing wealth inequality."  Also quotes economist Justin Wolfers (Ph.D. '01), Professor of Economics and Public Policy, University of Michigan.
View Norton and Ariely study

Harvard Gazette | Coverage of the the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies’ annual Summit on the Future of Europe. 

"Peter A. Hall, Harvard’s Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies, warned that in addition to its debt, banking, and growth crises, Europe faces a political one, with declining levels of trust in government and a shift away from mainstream politics. Hall argued that EU leaders worsened or caused the problem by seeking a “fuller fiscal or political union” in response to the Eurozone crisis, an approach that he said deprives national electorates of the sense that their governments are accountable."
View the conference agenda... Read more about 'Desperate but not hopeless times'

Chicago Tribune | Column cites research by Andrew Garin, Ph.D. candidate in Political Economy and Government, who examined the impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on local employment growth. Using geographically-detailed data on highway construction, Garin found no effect on employment in the local of the construction site, showing that this was because the majority of contractors, selected by competitive bidding, commute from other local labor markets.
View the research

The New York Times | Eduardo Porter column quotes Dani Rodrik, Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy: “What happens when Trump realizes he cannot adequately respond to the expectations he has raised?” he asked. “Does he respond to economic failure like all populists around the world do — by further polarizing the nation and deepening divisions based on identity? And what does that do the quality of our democracy?”... Read more about Trump Campaign's Easy Answers Confront Hard Reality

International Business Times |  Alex Keyssar, Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy, interviewed.

Bloomberg News | Discusses new paper, forthcoming in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, by Edward Glaeser, Wei Huang (Ph.D. '16), Yueran Ma, and Andrei Shleifer. Wei Huang is currently a Post-doctoral Fellow with the National Bureau of Economic Research.
View the research

Freakonomics Radio | Societies where people trust one another are healthier and wealthier. In the U.S. (and the U.K. and elsewhere), social trust has been falling for decades. Features Robert Putnam, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, and Edward Glaeser, Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics [audio + transcript].

Harvard Business Review | Essay by legal scholar Joan C. Williams draws from Michèle Lamont's book, The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration. Lamont is Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies and the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies at Harvard.... Read more about What was the white working class thinking?

The New York Times | Cites Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology.

The Boston Globe | Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology, offers perspective.

The Atlantic—CityLab | Explores research by Jeremy Levine (Ph.D. '16), now Assistant Professor of Organizational Studies, University of Michigan. View the research, forthcoming in the American Sociological Review... Read more about When Nonprofits Are the New City Leaders

Awardee: Monica Bell, Ph.D. candidate in Sociology & Social Policy... Read more about Monica Bell named a Harvard Law School Climenko Fellow

Awardee | Katerina Linos (Ph.D. '07)... Read more about International policy diffusion draws three book prizes

Awardee | Daniel Hopkins (Ph.D. '07)... Read more about Emerging scholar in political behavior

Awardee | Amanda Garrett (Ph.D. '13)... Read more about Best dissertation award in European politics

Awardee | Viridiana Rios (Ph.D. '13)... Read more about Best dissertation in public administration

Awardee | Traci Burch (Ph.D. '07)... Read more about Three book awards for 'Trading Democracy for Justice'

Awardees | Justin Wolfers (Ph.D. '01), Roland Fryer, and Parag Parthak... Read more about IMF names top 25 economists under age 45

Awardee | Asad L. Asad, Ph.D. candidate in Sociology.... Read more about Asad L. Asad receives ASA student paper award

Awardee | Robert J. Sampson... Read more about ASA Distinguished Book Award

Awardee | Patrick Sharkey (Ph.D. '07)... Read more about Outstanding scholarship in social demography

Awardee | Deirdre Bloome (Ph.D. '14)... Read more about Outstanding Paper Award in Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility

Awardee | David J. Harding (Ph.D. '05)... Read more about Early Career Award for Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility

Awardee | William Julius Wilson... Read more about William Julius Wilson awarded W.E.B. Du Bois Distinguished Career of Scholarship Award

Awardee | Anthony Jack, Ph.D. candidate in Sociology.... Read more about Anthony Jack receives ASA Outstanding Paper award

Awardees | Ryan Sakoda (Ph.D. candidate in Economics), Vanessa Williamson (Ph.D. candidate in Government & Social Policy), and Will R. Dobbie (Ph.D. '13)... Read more about Washington Center for Equitable Growth Announces Inaugural Class of Grantees

Awardee | Christopher Adolph (Ph.D. '05)... Read more about Best book award in comparative public policy

Awardee | Cybelle Fox (Ph.D. '07)... Read more about Book wins sixth award

Awardee |  Michèle Lamont

Awardee | Maria G. Rendon (Ph.D. '09)... Read more about Hellman Fellows announced

Awardee | Jal Mehta (Faculty, Ph.D. '06) 

Politico | Politco surveys a range of experts—among them, historian Leah Wright Rigueur, Assistant Professor at Harvard Kennedy School. Says Rigueur: We need to take Trump's tweets more seriously.

The New York Times | By Sendhil Mullainathan, Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics. How to find common ground in tackling problems of inequality and mobility from poverty? Focus on creating more tailwinds, writes Mullainathan.

Jamaica Plain Gazette (and others) | By Mayor Martin Walsh and Ron Ferguson, Faculty Director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University.

As the science tells us, 80 percent of a child’s brain growth happens during the first three years of life. Racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic skill gaps can become apparent by the age of two. How we engage our babies and toddlers in those first years are critical. We must foster stimulating learning environments across all households and neighborhoods in our city.

"That purpose is what brought organizations like the Black Philanthropy Fund, Boston Children’s Museum, the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard, Boston Medical Center, WGBH, and the City of Boston together to launch the Boston Basics campaign.

Brookings Institution | By Shaun M. Dougherty, Joshua S. Goodman, Darryl V. Hill, Erica Litke, and Lindsay C. Page. Joshua Goodman is Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

Gov Innovator Podcast | Andy Feldman (PhD '07) interviews Thomas Kane, Walter H. Gale Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard. Feldman is currently a visiting fellow with the Center for Children and Families at the Brookings Institution.

The Hamilton Project | A policy forum held at the Brookings Institution. The forum began with introductory remarks by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, followed by three roundtable discussions. Papers by David J. Deming (PhD '10) and by Tara E. Watson (PhD '03) and Adam Looney (PhD'04) were the focus of two of the roundtables. View event video and dowload papers, full transcript, and presentation slides from the event webpage.

David Deming is Professor of Education and Economics at HGSE and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Tara Watson is Associate Professor of Economics at Williams College and served in the U.S. Treasury Department from 2015-2016 as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Microeconomic Analysis. Adam Looney is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings and served in the U.S. Treasury Department from 2013-2017 as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis.

The 74 | By Thomas J. Kane,  Walter H. Gale Professor of Education and Economics at Harvard University and faculty director of Center for Education Policy Research.

Gov Innovator Podcast | Andy Feldman (PhD '07) interviews Jeffrey Liebman, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard Kennedy School. Feldman is Visiting Fellow with the Center for Children and Families at the Brookings Institution.

HarvardX | Listen as Professor Ron Ferguson, from the Harvard Kennedy School, discusses the Boston Basics — five actions a parent or any caregiver can take to help young children thrive. [video: 2 minutes]

"The nugget for me [that most influenced our emphasis in Boston Basics] was 4 or 5 years ago looking at the early childhood longitudinal survey and seeing that racial and socioeconomic differences are not very apparent around the first birthday, but they are stark by the second birthday."

Washington Post | By Vanessa Williamson (Ph.D. '15). Williamson is a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and author of the new book Read My Lips: Why Americans Are Proud to Pay Taxes.

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