Search results

Wielding Data, Women Force a Reckoning Over Bias in the Economics Field

January 10, 2018

The New York Times | Claudia Goldin, Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard, pointed to a recent study by Inequality & Social Policy doctoral fellow Heather Sarsons that found that women get significantly less credit than men when they co-write papers with them, as reflected in the way the paper affects their chances of receiving tenure. Heather Sarsons is a PhD candidate in Economics at Harvard.
View the research



Wicked Smart: Massachusetts's Efforts to Turn Around a Failing School District

June 1, 2016

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.



Why ‘Nudges’ to Help Students Succeed Are Catching On

January 29, 2016

The Chronicle of Higher Education | Highlights research by Judith Scott-Clayton (Ph.D. '09, now Columbia University Teachers College) illustrating how insights from behavioral economics are influencing education research and policy: "Higher education presents a 'perfect storm for the frailties of human reasoning,' Andrew P. Kelly says. 'The system often seems set up to frustrate people.' That’s especially true for the least-advantaged students, as Judith Scott-Clayton showed in 'The Shapeless River,' a paper describing the unstructured environment that community-college students must navigate."



Why you should save more than 3% in your 401(k)

August 26, 2016

San Francisco Chronicle | Quotes and cites early research by Brigitte Madrian, Aetna Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Management at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Employees who are auto-enrolled in 401(k) plans often contribute 3 percent of pay because this is the most popular default contribution level. How did this become the default? The 3 percent rate was used as a hypothetical example in two Internal Revenue Service rulings in 1998 and 2000, in which the IRS explained how 401(k) plans could automatically enroll workers without jeopardizing their tax benefits.... Read more about Why you should save more than 3% in your 401(k)



Why you should care about other people's kids

March 19, 2015

PBS Newshour: Making Sen$e | Interview with Robert Putnam



Why white people see black boys like Tamir Rice as older, bigger, and guiltier than they really are

December 28, 2015

Washington Post | Details findings of study by Phillip Atiba Goff, visiting scholar in the Malcolm Wiener Center. View the research, "The Essence of Innocence: the Consequences of Dehumanizing Black Children," published by the American Psychological Association. Goff presented this work in the Inequality Seminar in spring 2014.



Why White House Economists Worry About Land-Use Regulations

November 20, 2015

Wall Street Journal | Delves into papers by Raven Molloy (Ph.D. '05, now Federal Reserve Board of Governors) and by Peter Ganong (a Harvard Ph.D. candidate in Economics) and Daniel Shoag (Ph.D. '11, now HKS faculty), which CEA Chair Jason Furman highlighted in a recent address on the links between land-use regulations, wages, inequality, and intergenerational mobility.



Why What You Learned in Preschool is Essential at Work

October 16, 2015

The New York Times | Discussion of new work by David Deming (faculty and Ph.D. '10) on the importance of social skills in the labor market. He first presented this work in the Inequality Seminar earlier this month.



Why We Don’t Value Flextime Enough

March 3, 2017

Wall Street Journal | By Ray Fisman (Boston University) and Michael Luca (Harvard Business School). Most American workers won’t trade less pay for a more flexible schedule, but they’re underestimating the role of free time in personal happiness, Fisman and Luca write. Among the research discussed in this article, a recent study by Alexandre Mas (Princeton University) and Amanda Pallais (Harvard Economics), "Valuing Alternative Work Arrangements."
View the research



Why Voter Turnout is So Low in the United States

October 17, 2019

Jacobin | An interview with Alexander Keyssar, Matthew W. Stirling, Jr Professor of History and Social Policy and the author of The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States.

Pages