Harvard Magazine | In her Baccalaureate address to graduating seniors, Harvard University President Drew Faust drew from Sendhil Mullainathan's recent column in The New York Times on the cognitive biases that shape our responses to problems of ineqauality and opportunity:

 

As one of your economics professors, Sendhil Mullainathan, recently pointed out in a column in The New York Times, we remember the headwinds that blow against us and forget the tailwinds that help us along. Notice and be grateful for those tailwinds… How often do we remind ourselves that to some degree we won a global lottery over which we had no control?… “The most important things that happened to me here happened to me by accident,” one of you said. There is a responsibility that comes with recognizing that.

The Weekly Standard | Review of George J. Borjas's book, We Wanted Workers (W.W. Norton, 2016). Borjas is Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

The Economist | Cites study by Devah Pager, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy, which examined the job performance of former felons in the U.S. Army.

The Economist | Cites Todd Rogers, Associate Professor at Harvard Kennedy School. Also features work in which Elizabeth Linos (PhD '16) of  Behavioural Insights Team North America participated, a collaboration with the Chattanooga Police Department to attract more minority applicants to the force. (Read a detailed account of the Chattanooga experiment, including an interview with Linos, which appeared earlier this year in Quartz).

Russell Sage Foundation | Helen Marrow (PhD '07), Associate Professor of Sociology at Tufts University, has been selected to be a Visiting Researcher at the Russell Sage Foundation in 2017-2018. While in residence, she will work on her next book on Immigrant-Native Relations in 21st Century America. The book is a collaborative project with scholars Dina Okamato of Indiana University, Linda Tropp of University of Massachsuetts-Amherst, and Michael Jones-Correa of University of Pennsylvania. Read more about Helen Marrow's work:
helenmarrow.com

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).

Université de Bordeaux | Harvard sociologist Michèle Lamont is the recipient of the Doctorate Honoris Causa, conferred by the Université de Bordeaux in a ceremony and conference held June 14th. The honorary title is awarded to persons of foreign nationality for outstanding service in the arts, letters, sciences, and technology.

Lamont is Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies and the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies. She serves as the 108th President of the American Sociological Association in 2016-2017.

Awardee | Hope Harvey, PhD candidate in Sociology & Social Policy, has been awarded the 2017 Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) Family Division Graduate Student Paper Prize for her paper, "When Mothers Can’t ‘Pay the Cost to be the Boss’: Roles and Identity within Doubled-Up Households." Read more about Hope Harvey's work at her homepage.
scholar.harvard.edu/hopeharvey

Russell Sage Foundation | The Russell Sage Foundation announced four new awards from its small grant competition in intergenerational mobility, three of which will support research by Harvard Inequality & Social Policy affiliates:

• Ellora Derenoncourt (Harvard University)
  Did Great Migration Destinations become Mobility Traps?
  Ellora Derenoncourt is a PhD candidate in Economics.
   
• Ryan D. Enos (Harvard University)
  Do Public Works Programs Increase Intergenerational Mobility? Evidence from the Works Progress Administration
  Ryan Enos is Associate Professor of Government.
   
• James J. Feigenbaum (Princeton University), Maximillian Hell (Stanford University), and Robert Manduca (Harvard University)
  The American Dream in the Great Depression: Absolute Income Mobility in the United States, 1915-1940
  James Feigenbaum (Harvard PhD '16) is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University. In fall 2017 he will join the Boston University faculty as Assistant Professor of Economics. Maximillian Hell is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Stanford University.  Robert Manduca is a PhD candidate in Sociology & Social Policy at Harvard University.

Read the project abstracts

Awardee | Matthew Desmond receives 2017 top honor for Evicted, announced today by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights. Desmond is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard.
 

Harvard Magazine | Devah Pager, Leah Wright Rigueur, and Alexandra Killewald are featured among the 52 fellows who will be in residence at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study for the 2017-2018 academic year. 

Devah Pager, director of the the Inequality & Social Policy program and Professor of Sociology and Public Policy, will investigate "Race, Discrimination, and the Search for Work." Leah Wright Rigueur, Assistant Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, whose work focuses on race and the American political system, will be conducting research for her project “Black Men in a White House.” Sociology professor Alexandra Killewald’s project, “Tethered Lives: How the Male Breadwinner Norm Constrains Men and Women” will build off of her research, which focuses on the work-family intersection and the effects of marriage and parenting on income.
View the full list of fellows

Awardee | Hope Harvey, Ph.D. candidate in Sociology & Social Policy is one of three Harvard University doctoral students selected to be a Graduate Student Fellow in the 2017-2018 class of Radcliffe Fellows at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Hope will spend the year completing her dissertation, Exploring the Impacts of Doubling Up on American Families, with a Radcliffe Institute Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Learn more about Hope's work at her...

Council of Economic Advisers | The Council of Economic Advisers makes the economic case for criminal justice reform. The report draws on and cites academic research by Inequality & Social Policy affiliates Bruce Western, Amitabh Chandra, David Deming, Roland Fryer, David Hureau (Ph.D. candidate in Sociology & Social Policy), Devah Pager, and Robert J. Sampson.

Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston | By Beth E. Schueler (Doctoral candidate in Education), Joshua S. Goodman (Harvard Kennedy School), and David Deming (HGSE). A policy brief based on their research findings, which "provide encouraging evidence that accountability-driven improvement of chronically underperforming districts is possible."

The Hamilton Project | By Nora E. Gordon (Ph.D. '02), Associate Professor of Public Policy, Georgetown University.

The Century Foundation | By Irwin Garfinkel, David Harris, Jane Waldfogel (all Columbia University), and Christopher Wimer (Ph.D. '07, now Co-Director of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia's Population Research Center). 

The Saguaro Seminar—Harvard Kennedy School | In 2015, the Saguaro Seminar, led by Robert D. Putnam, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, launched the Closing the Opportunity Gap initiative. The initiative convened five working groups of the country’s leading experts in each of five areas: family and parenting, early childhood, K-12 education, community institutions, and “on-ramps” (like community college or apprenticeships).

Patrick Sharkey (Ph.D. '07) of New York University, a contributor to the community working group, co-authored the chapter on "Rebuilding Communities to Help Close the Opportunity Gap."

e21 | By Scott Winship (Ph.D. '09), Walter B. Wriston fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Council of Economic Advisers | Inequality (chapter 1) and early childhood disparities (chapter 4) were a central focus of this year's annual report, drawing extensively on research by many Inequality & Social Policy faculty and alumni. We are particularly partial to p. 182, which cites work by (then) doctoral fellow Sarah Cohodes et. al., "The Effect of Child Health Insurance Access on Schooling." Cohodes (Ph.D. '15) is now an Assistant Professor of Education and Public Policy at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Gov Innovator Podcast | Andy Feldman (Ph.D. '07, now Special Advisor for Evidence-Based Policy in the Office of the Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education) interviews Patrick McCarthy, President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Center for American Progress | New research by Richard B. Freeman and collaborators suggests that about one-third of the decline in the share of middle class workers is directly tied to the decreasing share of workers in unions. "The big question this research raises for Americans troubled by the decline of the middle class is whether the growth and level of inequality can be reduced without a strong labor movement,” said Freeman, Herbert Anchorman Professor of Economics at Harvard.
Get the report

Scholars Strategy Network | By Katherine Levine Einstein (Ph.D. '12). This brief summarizes research forthcoming in the  American Journal of Political Science. Read the research here ▶

Manhattan Institute | By Scott Winship (Ph.D. '09)

LSE U.S. Centre | By Jackelyn Hwang (Ph.D. '15, now a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University).

HKS Working Paper Series | By George Borjas.

The Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University | By Ronald F. Ferguson, Sarah F. Phillips (Tripod Education Partners), Jacob F.S. Rowley (Tripod Education Partners), and Jocelyn W. Friedlander (AGI).

Harvard Kennedy School | Amitabh Chandra

JAMA (Research Letter) | By Brendan Saloner (Ph.D. '12, now a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and Shankar Karthikeyan (also Bloomberg School of Public Health).

Gov Innovator Podcast | Andy Feldman (Ph.D. '07) interviews Jens Ludwig, Director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

The Hamilton Project  | Amitabh Chandra, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, participated in a policy forum addressing economic challenges in an evolving health care market, with a focus on three new papers released in conjunction with the event. The event, held at The Brookings Institution, featured opening remarks by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, and framing remarks by CEA Chairman Jason Furman.  View papers, presentation slides, and event video online.

The Hamilton Project | By Nicholas Bagley (University of Michigan Law School), Amtabh Chandra, and Austin Frakt (U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs and Boston University). Issued in conjunction with The Hamilton Project's policy forum, "Addressing Economic Challenges in an Evolving Health Care Market," held Oct 7, 2015, at The Brookings Institution.

Gov Innovator Podcast | Andrew Feldman (Ph.D. '07) interviews Maya Shankar, Chair of the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team.