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Latest Inequality & Social Policy In the News

Illiquid savings

People Trying to Save Prefer Accounts That Are Hard to Tap

February 12, 2017

Wall Street Journal | Research suggests policy makers could make retirement accounts even more restrictive without reducing their appeal. Discusses findings of an experimental study by John Beshears (Harvard Business School), James J. Choi (Yale), Christopher Harris (University of Cambridge), David Laibson (Harvard Economics), Brigitte C. Madrian (Harvard Kennedy School), and Jung Sakong (University of Chicago).
View the research

More Women in their 60's and 70's are Working

More Women in their 60's and 70's are Working

February 11, 2017

The New York Times | The Upshot talks with Harvard economist Claudia Goldin on her recent study with Lawrence Katz, "Women Working Longer: Facts and Some Explanations." Also highlights Goldin's work with Joshua Mitchell (Ph.D. '11), a senior economist at the U.S. Census Bureau, which appears in the current issue of Journal of Economics Perspectives.

"Nearly 30 percent of women 65 to 69 are working, up from 15 percent in the late 1980s, one of the analyses, by the Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, found. Eighteen percent of women 70 to 74 work, up from 8 percent.

"This rejection of retirement is more common among women with higher education and savings, though not confined to them. Those who are not working are more likely to have poor health and low savings, and to be dependent on Social Security and sometimes disability benefits, Ms. Goldin said.

Of those still working, Ms. Goldin said, 'They’re in occupations in which they really have an identity.' She added, 'Women have more education, they’re in jobs that are more fulfilling, and they stay with them.'” 
View the research (by Goldin and Katz)
View JEP article (by Goldin and Mitchell)

Why Falling Home Prices Could Be a Good Thing

Why Falling Home Prices Could Be a Good Thing

February 10, 2017

The New York Times | "Suppose there were a way to pump up the economy, reduce inequality, and put an end to destructive housing bubbles like the one that contributed to the Great Recession." Discusses recent paper by economists Edward Glaeser of Harvard and Joe Gyourko at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, which reviews the basic economics and functioning of the U.S. housing market "to better understand the impacts on home prices, household wealth, and the spatial distribution of people across markets."

Also cites research by Daniel Shoag (Ph.D. '11), Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard, and Peter Ganong of the University of Chicago, on the role of housing prices in limiting the ability of low-income workers to migrate to higher-wage areas, thereby contributing income inequality.

Dani Rodrik

Balance of Trade

February 9, 2017

Harvard Kennedy School Magazine
By Robert Kuttner
There are economists who teach the well-known postulate that free trade improves global well-being. There are other social scientists and popular critics who contend that laissez-faire trade can be bad for equality, for social stability, and even for economic efficiency, just as pure laissez-faire is not optimal at home.

And then there is Dani Rodrik.

Rodrik, the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at the Kennedy School, is close to a unique specimen in the field of economics. He is a respectful critic of some of the most cherished suppositions of his profession, notably in his books and articles expressing qualms about globalization. But Rodrik does it as a superb technical economist, with humility, precision, wit, intellectual curiosity, and an astonishing range of reading across disciplines. Continue reading»

kids

The most important skill for the workplace isn’t being taught in American schools

February 9, 2017

Quartz | Discusses research by David Deming (Ph.D. '10), a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Graduate School of Education, who finds that the labor market  in recent decades "increasingly rewards social skills", with "employment and wage growth particularly strong for jobs requiring high levels of both cognitive skill and social skill." Also cites a recent brief from The Hamilton Project, "Seven Facts on Noncognitive Skills from Education to the Labor Market," which draws on Deming's work.
View the research

Skyscrapers

HKS Footprint: Cities

February 9, 2017

Harvard Kennedy School Magazine | At Harvard Kennedy School, cities are a focus for research and an opportunity to experiment with new and better ways of governing. Features the work of Jeffrey Liebman, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy and director of the Government Peformance Lab, and of Quinton Mayne, Associate Professor of Public Policy, whose research "has found that where local governments can shape welfare policies, such as in education or social services, citizens are much less likely to be politically disaffected."

School integration

Integration Works: Can It Survive the Trump Era?

February 9, 2017

The New York Times | Thomas B. Edsall reviews an extensive body of social science evidence, including the work of Raj Chetty of Stanford University and Harvard's Nathaniel Hendren, Assistant Professor of Economics.

JPAL North America

Government leaders gather at J-PAL North America to advance evidence-based policymaking

February 9, 2017

MIT News | Lawrence Katz, Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics at Harvard and co-scientific director of JPAL-North America, spoke on leveraging housing vouchers as a ladder to economic mobility for low-income families. 

The conference, held at MIT, brought together state and local policymakers with leading researchers to discuss "how governments and researchers have partnered to use evidence from randomized evaluations to reduce crime and violence, improve maternal and child health, and promote housing mobility."

Tea Party

The Tea Party's Revival as the Party of Trump

February 7, 2017

OZY | Quoted: Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology. 

“[The Tea Party] was never about small government; it was about small government for the elites who latched on,” says Theda Skocpol, a Harvard professor and co-author of The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism. “For the grassroots back then, it was about making sure the government didn’t spend on the wrong people. Rarely did anyone criticize Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ benefits — the big-ticket items.” The biggest common theme, she says: “cracking down on immigration.”

Radcliffe Day 2017

Judy Woodruff and the late Gwen Ifill named Radcliffe medalists

February 7, 2017

Harvard Gazette | Radcliffe Day 2017, on May 26, will honor PBS journalists Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff. Harvard's Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor, will participate in the morning panel, "(Un)truths and Their Consequences," joined by A’Lelia Bundles '74, E. J. Dionne ’73, and Peggy Noonan. For more information about the day's events, which will be webcast live, see Radcliffe Day 2017.

Workers' Declining Share: Are 'Superstar' Firms Partially Responsible?

Workers' Declining Share: Are 'Superstar' Firms Partially Responsible?

February 3, 2017

Bloomberg | Discusses new study by David Autor (MIT), David Dorn (University of Zurich), Lawrence Katz (Harvard), Christina Patterson (MIT), and John Van Reenen (MIT), which examines the relationship between market concentration and labor's falling share in GDP. This work is forthcoming in American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings.
View the research

women's march

A Harvard study identified the precise reason protests are an effective way to cause political change

February 3, 2017

Quartz | Political protests in the first days of the Trump administration generate new interest in a study by Daniel Shoag (Ph.D.'11), Associate Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, and colleagues Andreas Madestam (Stockholm University), Stan Veuger (American Enterprise Institute), and David Yanagizawa-Drott (University of Zurich). The study, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in November 2013, seeks to determine whether protests actually cause political change, or whether they are "merely symptoms of underlying shifts in policy preferences."
View the research

Also cited: Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson's book, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism (Oxford University Press, 2012). Theda Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Governmant and Sociology at Harvard. Vanessa S. Williamson (Ph.D. '15) is  a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution.

Ivy League gender pay-gap

The Ivy League's Gender Pay-Gap Problem

February 2, 2017

The Atlantic | Features insights of Claudia Goldin, Henry Lee  Professor of Economics. Cites her research, joint with Marianne Bertrand (University of Chicago) and Lawerence Katz (Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics), published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (2010), which examined the dynamics of the gender gap for young professionals in the financial and corporate sectors. Also cites Goldin and Katz study, "The Cost of Workplace Flexibility for High-Powered Professionals," published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (2011).

Immigrant Shock: Can California Predict the Nation’s Future?

Immigrant Shock: Can California Predict the Nation’s Future?

February 1, 2017

The New York Times | Cites research from a coming book by Ryan Enos, Associate Professor of Government at Harvard. Also cites Daniel Hopkins (Ph.D. '07), Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and Robert Putnam, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard. 

Enos provides the details of his analysis in a short research note, "Changes in Hispanic Population and Voting in the 2016 Presidential Election."
View research note

factory

Declining Labor Share: The 'Superstar' Firm Explanation

February 1, 2017

The Atlantic | Discusses new study by David Autor (MIT), David Dorn (University of Zurich), Lawrence Katz (Harvard), Christina Patterson (MIT), and John Van Reenen (MIT), which examines the relationship between market concentration and labor's falling share in GDP. This work is forthcoming in American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings.
View the research

crime scene

Testing strategies for preventing violence and crime

January 31, 2017

MIT News | J-PAL North America, a research center at MIT, has announced that it has awarded grants to fund randomized evaluations focused on employing behavioral science insights to prevent crime and violence. One of the two grants, awarded to Anuj Shah, Associate Professor of Behavioral Science at Chicago Booth, and Aurélie Ouss (Ph.D. '13), a postdoctoral fellow with the University of Chicago Crime Lab, "will evaluate whether an app designed to lead at-risk youth to participate in safe activities can help them avoid dangerous default situations and behaviors."

Boston Trump protest

Trials for a global university

January 30, 2017

Harvard Gazette | With travel to U.S. banned from some nations, Harvard moves to support members of its international community. President Drew Faust's letter to the Harvard community and responses from across the University, including that of Dean Douglas Elmendorf of the Harvard Kennedy School.

Sorry, Working From Home Isn't the Future of Job Flexibility

Sorry, Working From Home Isn't the Future of Job Flexibility

January 30, 2017

Bloomberg | Highlights new study by Harvard economist Amanda Pallais and Alexandre Mas of Princeton, "Valuing Alternative Work Arrangements." Also discusses work of Claudia Goldin, Henry Lee Professor of Economics, on jobs that may allow greater flexibility in hours without sacrificing pay.

Latest awards

Ariel White awarded Robert Noxon Toppan dissertation prize

Ariel White awarded Robert Noxon Toppan dissertation prize

May 24, 2016

Awardee | Ariel R. White (Ph.D. '16) has been awarded the Harvard Government Department's 2016 Robert Noxon Toppan Prize for best dissertation in political science for her dissertation titled, "Voter Behavior in the Wake of Punitive Politics." White joins the MIT faculty as Assistant Professor of Political Science in the fall.

Robert Putnam Honored with Wildavsky Award for 'Bowling Alone'

Robert Putnam Honored with Wildavsky Award for 'Bowling Alone'

May 24, 2016

Awardee | Robert Putnam, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, has been awarded the 2016 Aaron Wildavsky Enduring Contribution Award by the Public Policy Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) for his 2000 book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community...The Wildavsky Award recognizes a work, published 10-20 years earlier, that continues to influence the study of public policy. 

Brigitte Madrian named to CFPB Academic Research Council

Brigitte Madrian named to CFPB Academic Research Council

May 20, 2016

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau | In prepared remarks, CFPB Director Richard Cordray welcomes new members Brigitte Madrian (Harvard) and Ian Ayres (Yale) to CFPB's Academic Research Council and highlights the importance of consumer finance as an area of economics and policy. Madrian is the Aetna Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Management at Harvard Kennedy School.

Deming Named Professor of Education

Deming Named Professor of Education

May 19, 2016

Harvard Graduate School of Education | Associate Professor David Deming (Ph.D. '10) has been promoted to full professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Deming is an economist interested in educational inequality and the impact of education policies on long-term outcomes.

“David’s scholarship addresses fundamentally important questions in exceptionally innovative ways. The rigor and relevance of his work — on subjects ranging from the long-term benefits of the Head Start program, the value of degrees from for-profit colleges, and the effects of racial segregation on academic achievement and life outcomes — make his findings absolutely essential reading for academics and policymakers alike,” said Dean James Ryan.

IZA Prize goes to Claudia Goldin

IZA Prize goes to Claudia Goldin

May 17, 2016

Awardee | Claudia Goldin, Henry Lee Professor of Economics, is the winner of the 2016 IZA Prize in Labor Economics, awarded by the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn. The prize is awarded for outstanding academic achievement in labor economics, intended to stimulate research that seeks "answers to the important labor market policy questions of our time." Read a profile of Claudia Goldin in the The University of Chicago Magazine, where Goldin earned her Ph.D., and Goldin's interview in Econ Focus, magazine of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond (Q4:2014). Learn more about Goldin's latest work at her Harvard Economics homepage.

Ann Owens named a 2016 NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow

Ann Owens named a 2016 NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow

May 16, 2016

Awardee | Ann Owens (Ph.D. '12), Assistant Professor of Sociology and Spatial Sciences at University of Southern California, has been named a 2016 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow, a fellowship that supports early career scholars working in critical areas of education research.

Owens will investigate whether and how both school and neighborhood inequalities contribute to the educational attainment gap between high- and low-income youth.The gap between high- and low-income young adults' educational attainment has grown over the past few decades while racial gaps have stabilized. Identifying possible explanations for the economic attainment gap, including neighborhood, district, and school economic segregation, is thus critical for reducing inequality for future generations.
... Read more about Ann Owens named a 2016 NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow

Asad L. Asad named a Radcliffe Institute Graduate Student Fellow for 2016-2017

Asad L. Asad named a Radcliffe Institute Graduate Student Fellow for 2016-2017

May 13, 2016

Awardee | Asad L. Asad, Ph.D. candidate in Sociology, is one of three Harvard University doctoral students selected to be a Graduate Student Fellow in the 2016-2017 class of Radcliffe Fellows at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Asad will spend the year completing his dissertation, Living in the Shadows? Reconsidering How Immigrants Experience Enforcement Policy, with a Radcliffe Institute Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Learn more about Asad's work at his homepage.

Jal Mehta

Announcing New Radcliffe Institute Fellows: Jal Mehta

May 13, 2016

Awardee | Jal Mehta (Ph.D. '06), Associate Professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has been selected to be the Evelyn Green Davis Fellow in the 2016-2017 class of fellows at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. These Radcliffe Fellows—scholars, scientists, and artists—come from six continents and across Harvard to pursue an individual project in an interdisciplinary setting. Mehta will be working on a book, The Chastened Dream: Social Science, Social Policy, and Social Progress across the Twentieth Century.

Abena Subira Mackall awarded AERA Dissertation Travel Award to participate in Annual Meeting

Abena Subira Mackall awarded AERA Dissertation Travel Award to participate in Annual Meeting

May 11, 2016

Awardee | Abena Subira Mackall, doctoral candidate in Education, has been awarded the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Minority Dissertation Travel Award to present her dissertation research at the 2017 annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The 2017 meeting theme is "Achieving the Promise of Equal Educational Opportunity." Read more about Mackall's research at her homepage.

Funding the future: Star Family Challenge supports cutting-edge research projects

Funding the future: Star Family Challenge supports cutting-edge research projects

May 10, 2016

Harvard Gazette | Edward L. Glaeser, Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics, is one of five recipients of this year's Star Family Challenge grant, awarded annually to "high-risk, high-return research efforts." Glaeser and colleagues are working to extend a machine-learning algorithm based on street-level images  that they developed in Boston and New York to aid in the collection of urban data in developing countries. 

Matthew Desmond to receive 2016 Human Security Award from UC Irvine

Matthew Desmond to receive 2016 Human Security Award from UC Irvine

May 3, 2016

Awardee | Matthew Desmond, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Science, is the 2016 recipient of the Human Security Award, which recognizes an individual "whose actions have made a dramatic difference in helping protect and empower the world’s most vulnerable groups and communities." The award is sponsored by the UC Irvine Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation, Center for Unconventional Security, and School of Social Ecology.

Mary Waters selected to give Henry and Bryna David Lecture at National Academy of Sciences

Mary Waters selected to give Henry and Bryna David Lecture at National Academy of Sciences

May 3, 2016

Awardee | Mary C. Waters, M.E. Zukerman Professor of Sociology, has been selected to give the 2016 Henry and Bryna David Lecture at the National Academy of Sciences. The Henry and Bryna David Endowment awards innovative research in the behavioral and social sciences by selecting a leading expert and researcher to write an article in their field to be presented at the National Academy of Sciences and published in Issues in Science and Technology.  The lecture will be webcast live May 3, 2016, at 5 pm.

Waters first presented this work, "The War on Crime and the War on Immigrants: New Forms of Legal Exclusion and Discrimination in the U.S.," in the Inequality & Social Policy Seminar Series, March 7, 2016.

Richard Freeman recognized with AEA Distinguished Fellow Award

Richard Freeman recognized with AEA Distinguished Fellow Award

April 29, 2016

Awardee | Richard B. Freeman, Herbert Ascherman Professor of Economics, is one of four recipients of the American Economics Association Distinguished Fellow award for lifetime distinguished research contributions. 

"Richard Freeman is an enormously innovative labor economist who has made pioneering contributions to virtually every aspect of the field including the market for highly educated labor, the economics of discrimination and poverty, the economics of trade unionism, comparative labor market institutions and empirical methodology. Freeman’s analyses have been notably expansive, eye opening, revealing, policy-relevant and often provocative, no more so than on trade unionism and the role of employee ownership." More ►

Center on the Developing Child Richmond Fellowship: Abena Subira Mackall

Center on the Developing Child Richmond Fellowship: Abena Subira Mackall

April 28, 2016

Awardee | Abena Subira Mackall, an Ed.D. candidate in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is one of four Harvard doctoral students to receive a Julius B. Richmond Fellowship from the Harvard Center on the Developing Child for the 2016-2017 academic year.

Mackall’s dissertation research lies at the intersection of education systems and juvenile and criminal justice systems, exploring the lived experience of juvenile probation and how adjudicated youth sentenced to probation interpret and understand this experience within the social context of their daily lives and development.

Center on the Developing Child Richmond Fellowship: Kelley Fong

Center on the Developing Child Richmond Fellowship: Kelley Fong

April 28, 2016

Awardee | Kelley Fong, Ph.D. student in Sociology and Social Policy, is one of four Harvard doctoral students selected to receive a Julius B. Richmond Fellowship from the Harvard Center on the Developing Child for the 2016-2017  academic year.

Fong’s research examines patterns of distrust and disconnection among low-income parents, asking how and why parents disengage from services and systems aimed at supporting their children’s health, well-being, and development.

Sendhil Mullainathan elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Sendhil Mullainathan elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

April 20, 2016

Awardee | Sendhil Mullainathan, Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics, is one of 213 new members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious learned societies whose members some of the world’s most accomplished scholars, scientists, writers, artists, and civic, business, and philanthropic leaders. Read more about the University's eight new members in the Harvard Gazette.

Vesla Weaver named a 2016 Carnegie Fellow

Vesla Weaver named a 2016 Carnegie Fellow

April 19, 2016

Awardee | Vesla M. Weaver (Ph.D. '07, now Yale University) is one of 33 recipients of a prestigious Andrew Carnegie fellowship, awarded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York for the advancement of research in the humanities and social sciences. Weaver is Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at Yale, and founding director of its Center for the Study of Inequality.

From Yale News: "Weaver’s proposal for the Carnegie fellowship, titled “The Faces of American Democracy,” will examine the relationship between poor citizens and communities and government in the United States. The project will provide the first systematic study of how Americans in different communities experience government activity across a number of areas, including schools, social welfare agencies, police and probation agencies, civil ordinances, the housing authority, and child protective services."

Jeffrey Liebman appointed to new federal Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking

Jeffrey Liebman appointed to new federal Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking

April 18, 2016

Jeffrey Liebman, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Public Policy, has been appointed by Senate Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid to the federal Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, which was enacted into law in March 2016. The law establishes a 15-member commission to study how best to expand and coordinate the use of federal administrative data to evaluate the effectiveness of federal programs. (See American Statistical Association community website for list of appointees to date).

See also: Urban Institute, "Everything you need to know about the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking."

Latest commentary and analysis

Jeffrey Liebman at Council on Foreign Relations

Behavioral Insights into Policymaking

April 18, 2017

Council on Foreign Relations | Part I of the Robert Menschel Economics Symposium: A conversation with psychologist Daniel Kahneman, recipient of the Nobel prize in economic sciences. Part II: A discussion on behavioral insights into policymaking with Jeffrey Liebman, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School; Maya Shankar, founder and Chair of the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST) under President Obama; and Elspeth Kirkman, senior vice president with The Behavioral Insights Team, North America. (Video + transcript)
View Part I: Daniel Kahneman

Prisoners at prayer at Gadsden County Jail, Quincy, Fla

Power and Punishment: Two New Books About Race & Crime

April 14, 2017

The New York Times Book Review
By Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Professor of History, Race, and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School. "Two new books offer timely and complementary ways of understanding America’s punitive culture," writes Muhammad: Locking Up Our Own, by James Forman Jr., and A Colony in a Nation, by Chris Hayes.

Why aren't we moving as much for work?

Why aren't we moving as much for work?

April 14, 2017

Marketplace | Daniel Shoag (PhD'11), Associate Professor at Harvard Kennedy School, sees reasons to worry about declining geographical mobility, driven in part by higher housing costs in high-growth areas, which limit opportunity for low-income Americans and increase inequality.

Douglas W. Elmendorf

Advice for the New President and Congress

April 8, 2017

Harvard Graduate School Alumni Day | By Douglas Elmendorf, Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School and Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy, who delivered the keynote address at Harvard GSAS Alumni Day 2017.

Peter A. Hall

Hall shares thoughts on EU's future

April 6, 2017
Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs | Peter A. Hall, Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies at  Harvard, gave a keynote address on "A Continent Redvided? European Integration in Turbulent Times," as part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's spring symposium on "Europe in Crisis: The Future of the EU and Trans-Atlantic Relations." View the full program:
La Follette Spring Symposium
Vanessa Williamson, Brookings forum

Why Americans are proud to pay taxes

April 4, 2017

Brookings Institution | The Brookings Institution hosted an event marking the release of Read My Lips: Why Americans are Proud to Pay Taxes, by Vanessa Williamson (Ph.D. '15), a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. A panel of experts joined Williamson to discuss how Americans view their responsibility as taxpayers and what Americans’ attitudes about taxes can tell us about public opinions of government as a whole. With E.J. Dionne, Heather Boushey (Washington Center for Equitable Growth), and Frank Clemente (Americans for Fair Taxes). (Video: 90 minutes)

Larry Summers

Larry Summers: The Economy and Tax Reform

March 30, 2017

Charlie Rose | A conversation about the economy and Trump's plans for tax reform with Larry Summers, president emeritus of Harvard University and former treasury secretary under President Clinton. (Video: 30 minutes)

College admissions: the myth of meritocracy

College admissions: the myth of meritocracy

March 29, 2017

Christian Science Monitor | By Natasha Warikoo (Ph.D. 05), Associate Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education. "Creating equal opportunity is a huge challenge. But we can start by changing our attitudes toward the admissions process," Warikoo writes.

NEJM logo

An FDA Commissioner for the 21st Century

March 29, 2017

New England Journal of Medicine | By Amitabh Chandra and Rachel E. Sachs. Chandra is Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Sachs is Associate Professor at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Chicago violence changes how children make friends

Chicago violence changes how children make friends

March 28, 2017

Crain's Chicago Business | By Anjanette M. Chan Tack and Mario L. Small. Discussion of the authors' new in-depth case study, recently published in Sociological Science, which interviewed African American students in high poverty Chicago neighborhoods about how they form friendships. "What we uncovered surprised us," Chan Tack and Small write.

Small is Grafstein Family Professor of Sociology at Harvard. Chan Tack is a doctoral candidate at University of Chicago. 

BETA 2017

New Frontiers in Behavioral Economics

March 28, 2017

The Institute of Public Administration Australia ACT Division (IPAA ACT) and the Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government (BETA) hosted Harvard professors Sendhil Mullainathan, Ziad Obermeyer, and Brigitte Madrian for a presentation and discussion of predictive policy—"how it can solve some of society’s most difficult problems and why it matters to government policy making." The event was led by political scientist Michael J. Hiscox, who is currently on leave from his Harvard whle serving as founding director of the Behavioural Economics Team (BETA) in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Australian Government. Includes video highlights (7 minutes) and full-length event video (~75 minutes).

How Companies Can Benefit More from Their Corporate Giving

How Companies Can Benefit More from Their Corporate Giving

March 27, 2017

Wall Street Journal | By Michael I. Norton, Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Involving customers or employees in charity decisions can help boost sales or job satisfaction.

Douglas Elmendorf and Richard Parker

Dean Douglas Elmendorf: Understanding the Congressional Budget Office

March 23, 2017

Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein CenterDoug Elmendorf, Dean of Harvard Kennedy School and former director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) from 2009-2015, discussed why the CBO exists, how it works, and how the media reports on its findings, in a conversation at the Shorenstein Center, March 22, 2017. Highlights and audio.

Tunnel Vision

Tunnel Vision

March 20, 2017

NPR The Hidden Brain | This week on Hidden Brain, the psychological phenomenon of scarcity and how it can affect our ability to see the big picture and cope with problems in our lives. Features Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan and Princeton psychologist Eldar Shafir, authors of Scarcity: Why Having So much Means So Little (Times Books, Henry Holt & Company, 2013). (Transcript + audio)

See also Harvard Magazine's feature on Sendhil Mullainathan, "The Science of Scarcity: A behavioral economist's fresh perspectives on poverty" (May-June 2015).

Douglas Elmendorf via Bloomberg

Trump's Budget isn't Going Anywhere, says Ex-CBO Director

March 17, 2017

Bloomberg | Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, joins to discussTrump's budget proposal and look at growth potential for the U.S. economy. (video: 6 minutes)

Latest policy, research briefs, and expert testimony