Washington Post | Highlights widely-cited study by Benjamin Edelman, Michael Luca and Dan Svirsky of Harvard Business School, who found "widespread discrimination" by Airbnb hosts. Quotes Michael Luca, Assistant Professor at HBS, who argues that "the onus is on Airbnb to make changes" and identifies several possible remedies.

Bloomberg | Quotes Lawrence Katz, Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics, co-author with Alan Krueger of Princeton University of a new study that suggests that "all the net employment growth between 2005-2015 appears to have occurred in alternate work arrangements." (View the research)

Financial Times | Features perspective of Edward L. Glaeser, Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics.

Chicago Policy Review | Delves into recent study by Beth E. Schueler (Ph.D. '16), Joshua S. Goodman, and David J. Deming. Read the original research, "Can States Take Over and Turn Around School Districts? Evidence from Lawrence, Massachusetts," NBER Working Paper.

Harvard Kennedy School | New research by Todd Rogers, Associate Professor of Public Policy.

The Atlantic | Americans are less likely to switch jobs, move to another state, or create new companies than they were 30 years ago (or 100 years ago). What’s going on? Cites research by Raven Molloy (Ph.D. '06, now a senior economist with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System) and colleagues (See their BPEA paper). Also cites research by Peter Ganong and Daniel Shoag (Ph.D. '11, now Assistant Professor, HKS) linking rising housing prices in wealthy areas to declining income convergence (See their paper).

The New York Times | Why homicide rates in Chicago outpace those in New York, with insights from Robert Sampson, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences.

Harvard Magazine | Dean  Douglas Elmendorf of  the Harvard Kennedy School and Claudia Goldin, Harvard's Henry Lee Professor of Economics, were among the participants in "Building an Economy for Prosperity and Equality," the opening symposium of Radcliffe Day, which honored  Janet Yellen, Federal Reserve Chair, with this year's Radcliffe Medal. Harvard Magazine writes that the panel, which also included economists David Autor of MIT, Louise Sheiner of the Brookings Institution, and Celia Rouse of Princeton University as moderator, "featured some of the most interesting researchers addressing these problems...in a searching, intelligent exchange of the sort that rarely occurred in the debates televised during the primary season."
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Harvard Magazine | Harvard's Commencement week concluded with a a program "honoring Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, the recipient of this year’s Radcliffe Medal and one of today’s most publicly vocal advocates of shared prosperity." Harvard Magazine notes that "Yellen has been unapologetic in her view that promoting broadly shared prosperity is inherent in the Fed’s mandate, a role which has cemented her leadership in the public conversation on inequality."
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Harvard Gazette | Dean Douglas Elmendorf of  Harvard Kennedy School and Claudia Goldin, Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard, are among the participants in a Radcliffe Day event on May 27 honoring Janet Yellen, Federal Reserve Chair and this year's Radcliffe Medalist. The day will open with the panel "Building an Economy for Prosperity and Equality," featuring Elmendorf and Goldin. Other Radcliffe Day participants include former Fed Chair Ben S. Bernanke; economics professor Gregory Mankiw of Harvard; Cecilia Rouse, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs at Princeton University; economics professor David Autor of MIT, and Louise Sheiner of the Brookings Institution. The day's events will be webcast live beginning at 10:30 am.

WNET Chasing the Dream: Poverty and Opportunity in America | Matthew Desmond, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, provides a firsthand look at the harsh realities of living in a trailer park [video segment: 8:27 minutes]. See the full documentary, The Last Trailer Park, which includes Desmond's interview [26:47 minutes].

U.S. News & World Report | Op-ed cites new research by Ann Owens (Ph.D. '12) of USC, which shows that increases in residential income segregation in recent decades have been driven by high-income parents opting to purchase homes in particular neighborhoods with good schools. (View the study in ASR)

The American Prospect | Cites findings of Alex Hertel-Fernandez, Ph.D. in Government & Social Policy '16.

Bloomberg View | Cites study by Bruce Western (Professor of Sociology and Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice) and Jake Rosenfeld (Washington University in St. Louis), which found that the decline of organized labor between 1973 and 2007 explains one-third of the rise in wage inequality among men during this time (See their ASR article), and by Richard Freeman (Herbert Ascherman Professor of Economics) and colleagues, which finds a "strong, though not necessarily causal link between unions, the middle class, and intergenerational mobility." (See Freeman et. al. study)

The Atlantic | A small but intriguing study done in West Philadelphia points to the importance of what researchers call microenvironments.  Features Laura Tach (Ph. '10) of Cornell University, lead author of the study. Also cites work of  Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren and Lawrence Katz.

Education Next | By Paul E. Peterson, Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government. With this issue, Peterson passes leadership of the journal Education Next to Martin West (Ph.D. 06), Associate Professor of Education, who will now serve as editor-in-chief. Peterson will continue to serve as senior editor for the publication, which he and collaborators launched 17-years ago.

National Museum of African American History and Culture | William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, spoke at "The Future of the African American Past," a three-day event sponsored by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture and the American Historical Association.
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NPR Morning Edition | Christopher Wimer (Ph.D. '07), Co-Director of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, is working with colleagues on a better way to measure poverty in New York City. Visit the interactive website to learn more about the Robin Hood Poverty Tracker. Scott Winship (Ph.D. '09), Walter B. Wriston Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, agrees that the research reveals some useful findings but expresses reservations about the measures, arguing that they may misdirect attention and public resources from those who really are struggling.

The Atlantic CityLab |Checking in on the latest advancements, and the challenges that remain. Highlights work by faculty affiliate Robert Sampson and Jackelyn Hwang (Ph.D. '15, now a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University), and a recent NBER paper by faculty affiliates Edward L. Glaeser and Michael Luca (with colleagues Scott Duke Kominers and Nikhil Naik), which uses computer visioning to better understand geographic differences in income and housing prices.

The Atlantic | By Patrick Sharkey (Ph.D. '07), New York University. Less visible than the rise of economic inequality is the way it has altered America's urban neighborhoods. Two books—Evicted by Harvard's Matthew Desmond and Ghetto by Mitchell Duneier (Princeton)—should help change that, writes Sharkey.

FREOPP | By Scott Winship (Ph.D. '09), Visiting Fellow, Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity. Winship digs into new Chetty et. al. paper released yesterday, "The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940."

Harvard Gazette | Sociologist Michèle Lamont and colleagues examined how minority group identities help sculpt how they handle discrimination. Lamont and Graziella Moraes Silva (Ph.D. '10), two of the authors of a new book Getting Respect: Responding to Stigma and Discrimination in the United States, Brazil, and Israel, sat down for for a question-and-answer session to talk about the project and what its findings say about race relations in the United States.

Lamont is Professor of Sociology and African and African American studies, Director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies. Silva is now Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at The Graduate Institute in Geneva.

Pacific Standard | A conversation with Robert Manduca (Ph.D. student in Sociology & Social Policy), one of the authors of the economic mobility study making waves this week. Learn more about Robert Manduca's work: robertmanduca.com

Harvard Business Review | By Jon Kleinberg (Cornell), Jens Ludwig (University of Chicago), and Sendhil Mullainathan (Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics, Harvard University). "[As] with all new 'products', there is potential for misuse. How can we maximize the benefits while minimizing the harm?"

"In applying these tools the last few years, we have focused on exactly this question. We have learned that some of the most important challenges fall within the cracks between the discipline that builds algorithms (computer science) and the disciplines that typically work on solving policy problems (such as economics and statistics). As a result, few of these key challenges are even on anyone’s radar screen. The good news is that many of these challenges, once recognized, are fairly straightforward to solve."

Harvard Business Review | By John Schupbach (HBS), Amitabh Chandra (HKS), and Robert S. Huckman (HBS). Chandra is Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Wall Street Journal | What Matthew Desmond and 49 others named as their favorite book this year. Desmond is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences and the author of Evicted.

Bloomberg Game Plan Podcast | This week, Sam and Rebecca of Bloomberg talk about how robots are changing the workplace and what it means for the future of the job market. Will jobs even exist in the future? Well, yes -- they'll just be different. Prof. David Deming (Ph.D. '10), a researcher at Harvard, joins them to talk about what kinds of skills and labor the robots can't take. Hint: Be human.

GovEx | GovEx, the Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University, speaks with Dr. Elizabeth Linos (Ph.D. '16), Vice President and Head of Research and Evaluation at Behavioral Insights Team North America, to explore the future of algorithms and their use in cities.

The Hill | By Archon Fung, Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship, Harvard Kennedy School.

C-SPAN | Alexander Keyssar, the Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy, testified at a forum hosted by House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI), which explored possibilities for replacing the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote.

WNPR—The Wheelhouse | Prof. Leah Wright Rigueur of the Harvard Kennedy School guests.

AEI | The American Enterprise Institute hosted an event featuring George J. Borjas, Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy. 

Social Science Bites | Interview with Jennifer Hochschild, Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government. 

WBUR Greater Boston | Prof. Leah Wright Rigueur of the Harvard Kennedy School guests.

Harvard EdCast | For her new book, The Diversity Bargain and Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities, Associate Professor Natasha Warikoo (Ph.D. '05), interviewed first-year students at Brown, Harvard, and Oxford. What she found was a disconnect between students' ideas of what a diverse campus would be and the reality. Often, says Warikoo, white students who were in favor of affirmative action during the admissions process were so because they saw a diverse campus as a benefit to their own growth and learning; they didn't consider what the experience would be for those of different backgrounds.

"The problem is that when that is the only way students make sense of affirmative action and diversity," says Warikoo, "it leads to some perverse outcomes," including reverse racial discrimination and anxiety about how others are affecting their success.

In this edition of the Harvard EdCast, Warikoo discusses the study that led to her new book, and reflects on the notions of race, merit, and privilege at elite universities.

Los Angeles Times | By Lee Drutman (Senior Fellow, New America) and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez (Ph.D. '16, Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs, Colubmia University). "If government doesn’t have resources of its own to develop policies, private groups with narrow interests — businesses above all — will happily do it themselves," the authors argue. "The evidence is increasingly clear: Disproportionate special interest and lobbyist influence comes from the simple fact that on many issues, these lobbyists are the only ones investing in crucial policy resources.

Reason | A spirited exchange between George J. Borjas and Shikha Dalmia on the empirical claims and proposed policy prescriptions in Borjas's new book, We Wanted Workers. Borjas is the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Dalmia is a Reason Foundation analyst.

The Hill | By Gregg Gonsalves, Daniel Carpenter, and Joseph Ross: "To those of us who have watched and studied the FDA for years, this legislation is the culmination of years of quiet, subtle deregulation—death to the FDA by a thousand cuts – as this new law includes worrying provisions that deftly and severely weaken the evidentiary requirements for the approval of new drugs and medical devices."

Daniel Carpenter is the Allie S. Freed Professor of Government at Harvard. Gregg Gonsalves and Joseph Ross are both from Yale University.

Talking Points Memo | By Theda Skocpol, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, and Caroline Tervo. "At first glance, the victory of Donald Trump suggests that big political money has less clout than imagined in U.S. democracy." Not so, say the authors, whose research has tracked the long-term rise and recent impact of the Koch network. Here they offer their perspective on how the Koch network helped to elect Trump and will now set the policy agenda. "Most media outlets have not noticed that the Koch network is now fusing with the emerging Trump presidency—a situation that leaves citizens in the dark about huge pending policy upheavals in federal programs most American families have long taken for granted." 

Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard. Hertel-Fernandez (Ph.D. '16) is now Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Caroline Tervo is a junior at Harvard College.

The New York Times | By Sendhil Mullainathan, Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics."The early stock market reaction to Donald J. Trump’s election victory was overwhelmingly positive. But that doesn’t mean a Trump presidency will be good for the economy," writes Mullainathan.

Harvard Kennedy School | "Low incomes, limited financial literacy, fraud, and deception are just a few of the many intractable economic and social factors that contribute to the financial difficulties that households face today...But poor financial outcomes also result from systematic psychological tendencies," some of which may be countered with government interventions that are both low-cost and scalable," Harvard Kennedy School Professor Brigitte Madrian and co-authors write in the latest issue of Behavioral Science & Policy. Their article outlines a set of interventions that the federal government "could feasibly test or implement to improve household nancial outcomes in a variety of domains: retirement, short-term savings, debt management, the take-up of government benefits, and tax optimization." 
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Kellogg Insight | Based on the research of Carola Frydman (PhD 2006) and Dimitris Papanikolaou. Carola Frydman is Associate Professor of Finance in the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. View the research: “In Search of Ideas: Technological Innovation and Executive Pay Inequality.” Journal of Financial Economics (Oct 2018).

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G20 Insights | Carlos Lastra-Anadón, PhD candidate in Government & Social Policy, has co-authored a policy brief that has been selected to appear in "20 Solution Proposals for the G20" to be circulated to summit participants at the G20 Hamburg summit, July 7-8, 2017. Theirs is one of 20 policy recommendations "chosen for their novelty, implementability, and relevance to the G20 during the German presidency."

The brief is co-authored by Manuel Muñiz (Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University), Karl Kaiser (Harvard University), Henning Meyer (London School of Economics), and Manuel Torres (Accenture).

Microeconomic Insights | By Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz. "How much of the earnings gap between men and women is because the latter choose jobs and occupations that enable flexibility in their work, predictability in their hours and bounds on their work schedule?," ask Harvard economics professors Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz. Here they summarize their recent article by the same title, pubilshed in 2016 in the Journal of Labor Economics.
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