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    After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality

    After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality

    November 15, 2016

     

    Harvard University Press | Ellora Derenoncourt, Ph.D. candidate in Economics, is a contributor to After Piketty, forthcoming from Harvard University Press in April 2017. Edited by Heather Boushey, J. Bradford DeLong, and Marshall Steinbaum, the 640-page volume brings together published reviews by Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Robert Solow and newly-commissioned essays by Suresh Naidu, Laura Tyson, Michael Spence, Heather Boushey, Branko Milanovic, and others. Emmanuel Saez lays out an agenda for future research on inequality, while a variety of essays examine the book's implications for the social sciences more broadly. Piketty replies in a substantial concluding chapter.

    Derenoncourt's chapter explores the historical and institutional origins of the wealth and income inequality documented in Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century. Drawing on the framework introduced by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson of extractive and inclusive institutions, Derenoncourt demonstrates how these institutions influence the distribution of economic outcomes in different countries and regions historically. In particular, she explores these questions in the context of slavery in the US South and European colonization in Africa and the Americas.

    Learn more about her work:
    Ellora Derenoncourt: Ph.D. fellow page ▶... Read more about After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality

    Donald Trump's infrastructure illusion

    Donald Trump's infrastructure illusion

    November 16, 2016

    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.
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    Seeing Red in Trump's America

    Seeing Red in Trump's America

    November 10, 2016

    Radio OpenSource | Among this week's guests, Nathan J. Robinson, Ph.D. student in Sociology & Social Policy.

    Sentencing Reform in an Era of Racialized Mass Incarceration

    Sentencing Reform in an Era of Racialized Mass Incarceration

    November 3, 2016

    Doctoral fellow Alix Winter, Ph.D. candidate in Sociology & Social Policy, and Matthew Clair, a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology, respond to the Massachusetts Sentencing Commission's invitation to comment on issues relating to sentencing policies and practices for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Winter and Clair provide "a brief overview of sociological research on mass incarceration, sentencing practices, and racial/ethnic minorities’ disproportionate contact with criminal justice institutions," drawing the Commission's attention to "empirical research pertaining to potential sentencing practices, policies, and principles that may assist the Commonwealth in reducing racial/ethnic sentencing disparities". They then draw on this research to make specific recommendations.

    Clair and Winter co-authored a related academic article, “How Judges Think about Racial Disparities: Situational Decision-Making in the Criminal Justice System," published in Criminology earlier this year. Learn more about their work at their homepages:
    scholar.harvard.edu/alixwinter
    scholar.harvard.edu/matthewclair

    Ph.D. fellow research cited in amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Fair Housing Act

    Ph.D. fellow research cited in amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Fair Housing Act

    October 10, 2016

    Research by Inequality & Social Policy doctoral fellows Jackelyn Hwang (Ph.D. '15), Michael Hankinson, and Steven Brown is part of an amicus curiae brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a robust enforcement of the Fair Housing Act to prevent and remedy discrimination in mortgage lending. 

    Their research, published in Social Forces, examined the relationship between segregation and subprime lending across the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. They found that residential segregation created “distinct geographic markets that enabled subprime lenders and brokers to leverage the spatial proximity of minorities to disproportionately target minority neighborhoods.” They conclude that "segregation played a pivotal role in the housing crisis by creating relatively larger areas of concentrated minorities into which subprime loans could be efficiently and effectively channeled."

    Learn more about their work:

    Jackelyn Hwang (Ph.D. '15) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University. In fall 2017, she joins the faculty at Stanford University as Assistant Professor of Sociology.

    Michael Hankinson is a Ph.D. candidate in Government & Social Policy.

    Steven Brown is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology and an affiliated scholar in the Executive Office at the Urban Institute. He is also a contributor to the Inequality and Mobility Initiative at the Urban Institute.... Read more about Ph.D. fellow research cited in amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Fair Housing Act

    Invention, place, and economic inclusion

    Invention, place, and economic inclusion

    October 20, 2016

    Brookings Institution | Delves into research by Inequality fellow Alex Bell (Ph.D. candidate in Economics), Raj Chetty (Stanford University), Xavier Jaravel (now a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford), and John Van Reenen (LSE and MIT) showing that "children of low-income parents are much less likely to become inventors than their higher-income counterparts (as are minorities and women)." Their research explores the sources of differences, and "establishes the importance of 'innovation exposure effects' during childhood," both geographic and parental.
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    How to Hire with Algorithms

    How to Hire with Algorithms

    October 17, 2016

    Harvard Business Review |  By Oren Danieli (Ph.D. candidate in Business Economics), Andrew Hillis, and Michael Luca (Assistant Professor of Business Administration). Algorithms have the potential to improve hiring and promotion decisions, the authors argue, but need to be managed.

    "We explored that potential in a recent study (American Economic Review, May 2016) on selecting teachers and policemen. We used machine learning algorithms to transform data about teacher and police characteristics – for example, educational background, surveys, and test performance – into predictions about their likely performance in the future. Our results demonstrate that students and communities alike could benefit from a more data-driven selection process. Algorithms can help with some of the nation’s most challenging personnel issues. For example, the data suggest that police departments can predict, at the time of hire, which officers are most likely to be involved in a shooting or accused of abuse."
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