World
Sources
PW Sources is a weekly newsletter of compelling reading across the social sciences. We surface relevant research and writing on issues of politics, economics, finance, history, and more. Each week we highlight research from a graduate student, postdoc, or early-career professor. Send us recommendations: editorial@jainfamilyinstitute.org.
In January, Haiti paid Venezuela $500 million to settle $2.3 billion in arrears from PetroCaribe loans. Between 2005…
On March 6, Egypt agreed to float its currency in exchange for a $5 billion increase in its…
Last year, the Brazilian senate enshrined the controversial Milestone Thesis (marco temporal) into law, whereby indigenous groups can…
The CHIPS and Science Act aspires to draw the manufacturing of US leading technologies back into domestic…
In light of Israel’s assault on Gaza post-October 7 and growing instability in the region, S&P Global and Moody’s have both…
On Thursday, a few months ahead of nationwide elections, India's Supreme Court banned electoral bonds—anonymous political donations sold by the…
The inflation slowdown in the United States stabilized in the last half of 2023 at approximately…
New data released by China's General Administration of Customs in January provides insight into China's economic relationship…
On Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Ram temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, marking a triumph…
Because of their ability to own property, enter into contracts, and stand in court independently of their owners,…
This week, arguments were presented in South Africa's proceedings against Israel at the International Court of Justice in…
Houthi-led attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea have caused major disruptions in maritime trade. With land-locked Ethiopia also…
In 2023, Phenomenal World sparked discussion across urgent issues of political economy, investigating the IMF, debt, and the dollar; the future of industrial policy in the…
The global energy transition and the specter of AI have led to predictions of massive changes…
In September, Azerbaijan launched a military attack on Nagorno-Karabakh. The majority ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijani borders has…
election, defeating Sergio Massa of the incumbent Unión por la Patria (UP) coalition. UP has its roots…
Israel, Egypt, and Jordan are among the world's largest recipients of US foreign aid. Last month, President…
On Nov 7, Portugal's Prime Minister António Costa, of the Socialist Party, resigned as state prosecutors…
After six weeks of sit-down strikes, the United Auto Workers (UAW) has reached tentative contract agreements with each…
Driven by urbanization, increased consumption, and rising populations, the global waste and recycling market grew to $57.69 billion last…
Following a violent attack by Hamas on October 7, the Israeli state has laid siege to the Gaza Strip:…
Evolving property regimes, labor market structures, and waves of financialization have transformed agriculture in the global South. In recent Phenomenal World essays,…
Remittances, which surpass half a trillion dollars globally, can dramatically shape recipient economies. India alone received almost $100 billion in…
Joan Robinson (1903-1983), who worked in an era when few women economists were respected in the academy,…
The tenth year of China's Belt and Road Initiative will be marked in Beijing at next month's Belt…
On September 11, 1973, the Chilean military, led by General Augusto Pinochet, and with support from the…
Since 2020, there have been military coups in six Francophone African countries—Mali, Chad, Guinea, Burkina Faso,…
Several investment banks have recently downgraded their growth forecasts for China in response to mounting debt crises, the closure of major…
Feminist economists have problematized the "unitary" conceptualization of the household, probing the black box of domestic life to explore how allocations of labor…
From the mid 1960s, a group of international scholars—including Issa G. Shivji, Walter Rodney, John S.…
Founded in the 1970s in Paris, the Regulation School was a group of scholars who offered a novel conceptualization…
Since April 15, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been fighting to…
Between the late 1950s and the 1970s, several European commercial banks formed clubs to share information and…
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador came to power in 2018 vowing to end the country's war on…
The Dutch coalition government collapsed last week, with Prime Minister Mark Rutte resigning after centrist coalition members refused to support…
Many post-colonial governments have attempted to pass land reforms to abolish feudal relations and promote equitable development. This process remains incomplete.
Sovereign credit ratings—typically issued by Moody's, Fitch, and Standard and Poor's—strongly determine the volume of credit extended to…
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is currently on an official state visit to the United States. President Joe Biden…
Wassily Leontief (1906–99) was a Russian-born American economist who pioneered Input-Output analysis, which models the interdependence of an…
The farm bill, an omnibus package of legislation passed every five years, is due for reauthorization in September.…
Last month, the liberal Move Forward party won the most seats in Thailand's central elections. Its policy proposals include amending…
Since the invasion of Ukraine, a growing financial alliance between Russia and China has prompted discussions around threats…
The first international labor convention in 1919 declared the adoption of an 8-hour work day or a 48-hour work…
Alice H. Amsden (1943-2012) was a pathbreaking developmental economist who examined East Asia's economic rise in the late twentieth…
Last month, the Chilean government announced plans to nationalize the country's lithium industry, which is dominated by two…
The G20's Common Framework is meant to help poor countries restructure their debts following the expiration of Covid-era measures like…
Italian scholar Giovanni Arrighi (1937-2009) was one of the foremost proponents of the discipline of World Systems Theory. His research subjects included…
In 1990, the United Nations Security Council, led by the US, imposed a broad swathe of sanctions on…
After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced that it would…
Last week, Shaw Fain won the presidency of the United Auto Workers (UAW), defeating incumbent Ray Curry of…
British scholar Susan Strange (1923-98) is a founding figure of the discipline of International Political Economy (IPE). Beginning in the…
The South Korean government recently announced that it would compensate Koreans who served as forced laborers for Japanese…
Last month, in order to enforce stronger content moderation and transparency rules, the European Union's 2022 Digital Services Act began requiring major…
On February 6, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck large parts of Turkey and Syria. Since then, the death…
On February 3, a freight train operated by Norfolk Southern derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. The major accident was later declared "100…
Chile has long been known in the region for relatively steady growth paired with high levels of income inequality. The…
Protests against a measure to raise the retirement age in France and news of China's population decline have prompted discussion…
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Colombia’s new Minister of Mines and Energy, Irene Vélez Torres, announced that the country's…
Last week, over a million people in France marched in protest of President Macron's planned pension reforms. The reforms…
Oxfam India's latest report revealed that 84 percent of the country suffered a decline in wealth in 2022, even as the…
This week, Ghana's government reached an agreement to raise public sector salaries by 30 percent in response to rapidly…
In response to escalating industrial unrest, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's newly proposed anti-strike legislation threatens to impose…
Over the past year, Phenomenal World has inspired discussion across spheres of political economy, publishing on…
This week's Mercosur summit exposed rifts between the trade bloc's four members—Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay—with Uruguay stating the intention to…
After months of negotiations, US congressional lawmakers are desperately trying to avert a national strike on the country's…
In September, Hurricane Ian devastated southwestern Florida, with floodwater and power outages causing significant damage to homes and…
Following years of government subsidies, the Chinese aluminum extrusion industry now threatens to wipe out domestic producers…
Earlier this year, India increased its coal production in response to heat wave-induced electricity shortages. The power crisis prompted new…
In recent months, over 230,000 claimants have sued multinational conglomerate 3M for faulty products, launching the largest mass…
Last week, Egypt reached a staff-level agreement with the IMF to receive its fourth loan in six years. The nation struggles with a…
In late September, India was projected to overtake the UK as the world's fifth largest economy. Though it has since…
In the first round of Brazil's presidential elections last Sunday, former President Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva received the…
Ongoing interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve combined with the recently published "mini-budget" have sent…
Hurricane Fiona's landfall last week left all of Puerto Rico without electricity, exposing weaknesses in the island's electricity grid…
Last week, the referendum to overhaul Chile's Pinochet-era constitution lost by more than 20%. The result…
The recent floods in Pakistan have brought attention to the viability of the country's hydropower projects and the debated role of…
Mikhail Gorbachev's death has prompted renewed reflections on his domestic, regional, and international legacy.This legacy is of particular…
Last month, Bangladesh requested a $4.5 billion loan from the IMF in order to deal with its foreign…
In recent months, the UK's rising living costs and stagnant wages have given rise to a…
Last October, the US was instrumental in the signing of a landmark global tax agreement which mandated the…
The past few months have seen record-breaking heat waves across the globe. In India, a deadly…
This week, Russia’s state-run energy company Gazprom drastically cut gas supplies— delivered via the Russia-Germany Nord…
This month China narrowly missed its growth targets, sparking speculation over the economic impacts of its…
In the midst of a global semiconductor shortage, the US Senate is considering a bill that…
Amid the ongoing global energy crisis, French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron has announced the full renationalization…
Among the most notable innovations in trade union strategy since the late 20th century has been…
Amidst food shortages, an energy crisis, and a "complete collapse" of the economy, Sri Lankan President…
In March of this year, the London Metal Exchange suspended trading in nickel after a 250…
This week, President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA) to boost clean energy production, including solar technology,…
In recent decades, the global financial system has undergone a series of profound crises. While the…
This weekend's presidential elections in Colombia could result in the victory of the country's first leftist…
This week, labor markets across the US and Europe exhibited seemingly inconsistent trends: while unemployment is…
News around the potential reversal of Roe v. Wade in the United States has brought renewed…
Since 2018, the Turkish lira has suffered repeated devaluation shocks, increasing rates of loan default and…
Exxon recently announced three oil discoveries off the coast of Guyana, increasing the company's recoverable oil potential in…
A top economic advisor in the Dominican Republic recently estimated that the loss of Russian and…
The latest version of the Omnibus spending bill ends the extension of child nutrition waivers, which…
Last week, the independent Amazon Labor Union won a NLRB election at a Staten Island warehouse,…
This week, approximately 50 million workers in India engaged in a national strike against what they…
Brazil's nearly 70-year-old national oil company, Petrobrás, faces criticism from across the political spectrum for its…
In December 1973, Richard Nixon announced the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act as a response…
Among the cities experiencing pronounced ripple effects from the Russian sanctions is London, whose financial institutions and…
Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a quarter of the world's wheat supply, leading to concern…
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's suspension of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project has provoked numerous commentaries…
The pandemic imposed major stress on municipal budgets around the world, with many local governments facing…
The pandemic induced wave of government spending has prompted renewed debates on the magnitude and likelihood…
The Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach processed respectively 10.7 and 9.3…
Concerns over inflation have led to an uptick in research and policy debate over the specific…
Earlier this month, a wave of protests spread across Kazakhstan. Though prompted by rising gas prices,…
This week, the Indian megaconglomerate Adani Group and South Korean steel company POSCO announced plans to build a…
Wealth and political power often come from property ownership, but the dynamics of real estate transactions…
Over the last year, PW Sources has covered a wide range of issues—from caste and labor, to social…
In the 1970s, the study of Latin America was an intellectual crossroads for scholars of political…
Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest has reached its highest rate in 15 years, with satellite footage recording 5,110…
In October, over 10,000 John Deere workers went on strike, 1,400 Kellogg's workers followed suit, and…
In recent decades, policy arenas which are resistant to national and international regulation have seen the…
After two years of publishing, we are thrilled to launch a new website. Our new home—developed and designed…
While a group of statisticians recently found the 2020 US Census to be free of major errors, many were concerned about…
Since the mid-19th century, municipal debt has been responsible for funding some of the most significant…
Both consumers and businesses have felt the effects of ongoing backlogs in global supply chains. The…
As the Fed moves towards tightening its post-pandemic monetary policy, developing countries around the world face…
A rise in deportations of Haitian immigrants at the US-Mexico border has brought another cycle of…
The possible collapse of Evergrande, China's second largest property developer, has reverberated through global financial markets.…
This week, millions in California voted in support of Governor Gavin Newsom in a recall election.…
Long held to be essential for development, capital flows have come under increasing scrutiny for their…
Haiti won independence from France in 1804, but in return for recognizing its formerly enslaved colony,…
Earlier this year, global carbon markets were valued at a record breaking $277 billion. The number…
Observers in the past decades have commented on increased urbanization in India, which has led to…
75 percent of US firms currently make use of non-disclosure agreements. Originally developed to protect trade…
This week, the Mexican government sued eleven major US arms manufacturers, alleging that they facilitated the…
MICRO-STRATEGY Accounts of major historical shifts tend to treat states as unified actors responding to external…
Structures of unfree labor have always been at the edge of current and historical discourse on…
Earlier this week, the EU published a series of proposals aimed at reducing its carbon emissions…
Haiti's President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated on Wednesday, plunging the country into greater political unrest following…
The impending retreat of US troops from Afghanistan has brought renewed discussion on Pakistan amidst both…
Since the 2000 World Water Forum in The Hague, governance over water resources has gained salience…
Earlier this week, global leaders at the G7 summit signed a "green belt and road initiative,"…
former congresswoman and daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori. The contest has revealed deep polarization in…
This week marked the 640th anniversary of the 1381 Great Rising, a rebellion which swept across…
Though the US economy remains about 10 million jobs short of its pre-pandemic levels, employers and…
Recent events in Gaza and Colombia have led to calls for the conditioning of foreign aid—a…
Use of the most recent government stimulus varied by income, with richer households saving the money…
In the late 2000s, the term "land grab" rose to prominence to describe large-scale acquisitions of…
Millions of workers in global supply chains have lost their jobs as a result of the…
The US government spends upwards of $20 billion annually on domestic agricultural support programs, but with…
In January 2021, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman unveiled plans to build ‘The…
Amid the global Covid-19 vaccination campaign, a debate has emerged around intellectual property (IP) and stark…
Earlier this week, the blockage of the Suez Canal by the giant Ever Given container ship…
Frequent mass shootings and recurring political struggle over gun control measures are uniquely American social phenomena.
Debates concerning the relative role of structure versus agency in explaining social phenomena has endured for…
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought attention to the underfunding of US public health infrastructure over the…
Deindustrialization is a key orienting point for research in political economy. But around the world, factory…
Since November 2020, thousands of Indian farmers from Punjab, Haryana, and other states have protested the…
Earlier this week, millions of households lost power in the face of a powerful snowstorm. While…
The proposed Covid-19 stimulus package in the US has reignited debate around inflation. Much contemporary concern…
While the neoliberal era appears to be in crisis, we took on a project to investigate…
Next week marks the launching of our first book-length Phenomenal World publication: Market Economy, Market Society:…
Outside of Brazil, the Bolsa Familia is known as the hallmark social policy of the former…
The simultaneous integration of global markets and decentralization of government within nation states has been a…
The deep divisions in American political and social life have long been thought to explain the…
In the wake of recent financial convulsions, central banks have emerged yet again as the first…
Between 1940 and 1990, housing growth in the United States outpaced population growth by 173 to…
This year's turbulent oil market, in combination with the Covid-19 pandemic, has threatened the financial outlook…
Recent studies estimate approximately 60% of the world's population earns their wages in the informal economy.…
The conclusion of the United States election has prompted a resurgence of commentaries on the state's…
With Covid-19 cases again rising around the globe, the World Health Organization (WHO) has faced increased…
The confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court has sparked ongoing debates over the…
India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has dominated Indian politics in…
Explanations for the absence of a universal healthcare program in the United States tend to focus…
With millions facing housing insecurity, the economic downturn has sparked concerns of a new housing crisis.…
Recent weeks have seen proliferating analyses of the constitutional infrastructure of the US, and speculation over…
It is well known that the share of the global labor force working in services has…
Since the first export processing zone was established in Puerto Rico during the 1940s, special economic…
Land acquisitions have been on the rise since 2008, when rising oil prices and an international…
In addition to straining America's existing welfare infrastructure, the pandemic has fundamentally altered labor markets and…
The compound risks of climate catastrophe and Covid-19 have defined the year thus far. As the…
Covid is accelerating the transition away from cash and encouraging the development of state-backed digital currencies.…
Standard postwar theories of class composition in the global north emphasized occupational differences between employers, blue…
It's been over a week since Congress allowed the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation scheme to lapse,…
Much research has documented the vast sums of "missing wealth" stored in tax havens, and detailed…
Catastrophic deficiencies in the federal response to the Covid-19 pandemic have led to renewed discussion over…
Common wisdom around central bank independence (CBI) is increasingly a matter of debate. Before the Covid-19…
Michael Mann's four volume magnum opus, The Sources of Social Power, analyzes the history of human…
Historically, the expansion of the American frontier symbolized a unity between political liberty and economic growth,…
Brazil's Bolsa Familia is widely credited with lifting more than 20 million people out of extreme…
LABOR In her 2007 book, Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt, sociologist…
As debate and discussion continues over reforms to US policing, attention has been drawn to the…
As commentators and policymakers have scrambled to find explanations for and responses to the unprecedented uprisings…
This week has seen policymakers, scholars, and the public debate the meaning of collective violence. While…
Analyses of variation in state-level responses to the coronavirus tend to focus on party determination: On…
Among the many corona-induced shocks rippling through the global economy is the crash in remittance payments…
Covid is changing popular attitudes towards the public sector, prompting many commentators to anticipate a new…
Following the comparative success of South Korea and Singapore to flatten the Covid-19 curve, governments around…
It's been a turbulent week for the US Postal Service. With revenues plummeting as mail volume…
Among the diverse local and national policy responses undertaken to combat the pandemic in recent months,…
Scholars of the global food system unravel a vast web linking trade policy, public health, economic…
Comparisons of responses to the Covid-19 crisis across national lines yield as many questions as answers.…
The need to formulate a unified COVID response has placed pressure on European integration in recent…
This week, reports swirled regarding President Trump's invocation of the Defense Production Act—a 1950 law passed…
At present it's difficult to think of much else beyond the fragility of our global economic…
The correlation between health, income, and wealth is widely recognized in contemporary research and policy circles.…
Over the past two decades, "evidence-based policy" has come to define the common sense of research…
Of the various issues mired in severe and ongoing party polarization, climate crisis is among the…
In an employer-sponsored healthcare system like that of the United States, deteriorating labor market protections have…
Standard theories of development have been predicated on the goal of an industrialized economy with the…
Sample size does more than determine the sort of methodology appropriate for a given study; theorists…
Deindustrialization is a global phenomenon taking place more rapidly in middle- income countries than in high-income…
Despite contributing towards a series of crises (from the third world debt crisis of the 80s…
Researchers of policy history have long deliberated over explanatory frameworks: institutionalist accounts tend to focus on…
Foundational to the discipline of international relations, historian E. H. Carr's path-breaking book Twenty Years' Crisis…
Thank you for reading the JFI letter this year. As we prepare for another year of…
The recent boom in identifying and measuring monopsony in labor markets has brought the question of…
Like many systems of social provision—from housing to pensions—American education has become increasingly financialized. In a…
In recent decades, policy approaches to housing provision have focused on increasing the incomes of subsidy…
Major accounts of the role of the state in economic development have held that the state…
In addition to lagging behind many European economies in the breadth, amount, and quality of welfare…
Tax reform is at the forefront of contemporary policy debate. US citizens pay taxes at lower…
Of the many justifications for introducing a universal basic income, automation is among the most popular.…
As student debt grows and the labor market stagnates, a growing body of research seeks to…
Breathless media coverage of machine learning tools and their applications often obscures the processes that allow…
In his 1990 book, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (TWWC), sociologist Gosta Esping-Andersen identified three…
Recent years have seen a surge in scholarship that critically evaluates the origins and impact of…
Two weeks ago today marked the passing of the great Immanual Wallerstein. His work has had…
While the thorny ethical questions dogging the development and implementation of algorithmic decision systems touch on…
Last week, we considered how social and political standards can pressure climate scientists to under-report their…
Without any “evidence of fraud, malfeasance or deliberate deception or manipulation,” or any promotion of inaccurate…
The role of labor (with some notable exceptions) has been relatively marginal in debates over how…
The emergence of companies like Uber and Taskrabbit has prompted commentators across legal, economic, and policy…
Technology companies are coming under increased scrutiny for the ethical consequences of their work, and some…
Many recent policy proposals are variations on European programs implemented throughout the twentieth century. Despite their…
At the Phenomenal World, we have been publishing pieces covering a wide-range of topics, many of…
Beyond growing calls for welfare expansion and a more progressive tax system, recent policy debates have…
Higher education is widely understood to be a major driver of intergenerational mobility in the United…
How can evidence inform the decisions of policymakers? What value do policymakers ascribe to academic research?…
In past newsletters, we have highlighted research and policy proposals relating to the Green New Deal…
Debates over the relevance of indicators like GDP for assessing the health of domestic economies are…
Debates over the political impacts of Central Bank Independence (CBI) reached their peak in the late…
Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington State and Democratic presidential candidate, has made climate policy the…
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is the country's largest anti-poverty program. In 2018, over 20…
Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 permits certain postsecondary institutions to be eligible…
As economies across Europe and in the United States have become more knowledge-based, urban-centered, and tech-driven,…
In nearly every major urban center, housing affordability is in crisis. Since the 1960s, median home…
Current UBI discussions emerged out of concerns over the role of human beings in a machine-dominated…
The most visible discourse on universal basic income focuses squarely on the labor market. Unconditional cash…
Public research universities have long been understood as engines of meritocratic social mobility. Relative to other…
There is renewed debate around the merits of protectionism and free trade, spurred by political rhetoric…
Research surrounding student debt and the labor market value of postsecondary degrees focuses primarily on students…
In the digital ethics literature, there's a consistent back-and-forth between attempts at designing algorithmic tools that…
Household debt has proliferated in the past decade. In the final quarter of 2018, it reached…
More than a decade after the financial crisis of 2008, median household incomes have stagnated at…
In recent weeks, a familiar debate over how we understand the global poverty rate across time…
This week, we delve into the persisting inequalities of our higher education system. Since Winston, Hill,…
In the ever expanding digital ethics literature, a number of researchers have been advocating a turn…
A new paper from the Center for Effective Global Action at Berkeley surveys a topic important…
In a recent newsletter, we noted a spate of reporting drawing attention to the authoritarianism of…
In a report for the Berkman Klein center, Henry Farrell and Bruce Schneier identify a gap…
We’re beginning with a report from Evidence in Practice, a project from the Yale School of…
The JFI Letter has grown and morphed over the past twelve months; thank you to our…
SCIENTIFIC RETURNS A new book examines the economic and social impacts of R&D Last May, we…
GREEN INFLUENCE A discussion of different approaches to climate policy Last week, the U.S. government released…
PLACE-BASED SUBSIDIES | UBERLAND | HISTORY OF QUANTIFICATION STAGNANT INFLUENCE The inefficiency of lobbying A few…
NEW UBI REPORTS | ELECTORAL VIOLENCE | BEYOND GDP DISCRETION DIFFERENTIAL On the varying modes of…
FUTURE OF WORK | MEDIEVAL FLOOD INSURANCE | GENDERED EMPLOYMENT POLITICAL TURBULENCE How do we meaningfully…
EFFICIENT DISPERSION Applying quantitative methods to examine the spread of ideology in judicial opinion In a…
WHAT IS A FAMILY? Competing definitons of the term have vast policy implications The formal definition…
CLAIMS THAT CAN'T BE TESTED What policy lessons can we derive from UBI experiments? Political philosopher…
HARD CAPS Economic growth vs. natural resources A recent Foreign Policy op-ed by JASON HICKEL examines…
MIDDLE WAGE Questioning the great transition into a "global middle class" Economist STEVE KNAUSS, in a…
MATERIAL UNDERSTANDING The full resource stack needed for Amazon's Echo to "turn on the lights" In…
THE JANUS FACE The paradoxical outcomes of university-centered economic growth A recent paper by RICHARD FLORIDA…
WEALTH BEGETS WEALTH Matt Bruenig's Social Wealth Fund proposal, and responses Last week, MATT BRUENIG of…
Example table test County, State Participation Rate 2016 Population DeSoto County, Florida 74.0 35800 Hardee County,…
CONSTRAINED POSSIBILITIES On the relationship between academic economics and public policy In a recent working paper,…
SPATIAL PARAMETERS On place-based and adaptable public policy A recent report published by BROOKINGS INSTITUTE discusses…
COMPENSATION TREATMENT In Iran, cash transfers don't reduce labor supply A new study examines the effects…
ALCHEMIST STOCK Automation, employment, and capital investment At his blog STUMBLING AND MUMBLING, CHRIS DILLOW discusses…
ENERGY BOOM A new carbon tax proposal and a big new carbon tax research report Representative…
BANKING AS ART On the history of economists in central banks A recent paper by FRANÇOIS…
ALTERNATIVE ACTUARY History of risk assessment, and some proposed alternate methods A 2002 paper by ERIC…
DATA IS NONRIVAL Considerations on data sharing and data markets CHARLES I. JONES and CHRISTOPHER TONETTI…
EVIDENCE PUZZLES The history and politics of RCTs ⤷ Guaranteed Income In a 2016 working paper, JUDITH…
CLIMATE PREDICTION MARKET How to link a carbon tax to climate forecasting A 2011 paper by…
VISIBLE CONSTRAINT Including protected variables can make algorithmic decision-making more fair ⤷ Digital Ethics A recent paper…
ROLL CALL A new report from Fordham CLIP sheds light on the market for student list…
PAVEMENT, NURSING, MISSILES Algorithm Tips, a compilation of "potentially newsworthy algorithms" for journalists and researchers DANIEL…
ARTIFICIAL INFERENCE Causal reasoning and machine learning In a recent paper titled "The Seven Pillars of…
SHOCK-LEVEL-ZERO Jobs guarantees vs. basic income In a characteristically lengthy and thorough post, SCOTT ALEXANDER of…
EACH POINT ON THE CHAIN Arguments for Value-Added Tax in the US, and using VAT to…
LABOR-LEISURE TRADE-OFF A new paper on the labor effects of cash transfers SARAH BAIRD, DAVID MCKENZIE,…
POSTAL OPTION Renewed interest in an old model Last week we linked to the widely publicized…
ONTARIO FOR ALL Canada calculates expanding Ontario's guaranteed income to the entire nation Canada’s Parliamentary Budget…
NON-ZERO PRICE "Digital goods have created large gains in well-being that are missed by conventional measures…
METARESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT Changes in R & D funding and allocation In a new report on…
TARGET VARIABLE Big data's effect on the credit-scoring industry A lengthy 2016 article from the Yale…
URBAN WEALTH FUNDS | OWNERSHIP OF SOVEREIGN WEALTH | FILTER BUBBLE EFFECTS URBAN WEALTH FUNDS Social…
FAIRNESS IN MACHINE LEARNING | METARESEARCH | MICROSTRUCTURE OF VIOLENCE DISTINCT FUSION Tracking the convergence of…
STATE SCHOOL RECRUITMENT | JOB GUARANTEE | BLOCKCHAIN DEPENDENCE EXTERIOR State universities' reliance on out-of-state enrollment…
CRIMINALIZATION OF DEBT | INTERNET CENSORSHIP | EQUALITY BRUTAL ATTACHMENTS A new report on the criminalization…
IVORY MECHANICS Regional parochialism and the production of knowledge in universities "Scholarly understanding of how universities…
DEFERRED ACTION On the effects of DACA Last week we linked to a paper that outlines…
BASIC OPPORTUNITY Considerations on funding UBI in Britain The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of…
AUTOMATIC PRECISION Translating randomized controlled trials into policy action "A randomized experiment is performed,a statistically significant…
MASS PRIVACY The inadequacy of individual informed consent This week, an Australian college student noticed how…
DISCONTINUOUS ADVANCE A flurry of articles in December and January assess the state of artificial intelligence…
PERVERSE CONSEQUENCES Does banning the box increase hiring discrimination? “Our results support the concern that BTB…
THE WAGE EFFECT Higher minimum wages and the EITC may reduce recidivism “Using administrative prison release…
THE YEAR IN ECONOMICS Nominations from top economists, including selections by Raj Chetty, Sendhil Mullainathan, and…
INCOME SHARE AGREEMENTS Purdue, BFF, the national conversation “Long discussed in college policy and financing circles,…
HOW TO HANDLE BAD CONTENT Two articles illustrate the state of thought on moderating user-generated content…
THE FUTURE OF UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION A new report argues that quality, not access, is the pivotal…
ARTIFICIAL AGENCY AND EXPLANATION The gray box of XAI A recent longform piece in the New…
PREDICTIVE JUSTICE How to build justice into algorithmic actuarial tools Key notions of fairness contradict each…
"A DOLL POSSESSED BY A DEMON" Recommender systems power YouTube's controversial kids' videos Familiar cartoon characters…
FEED FEEDBACK Sociologist Zeynep Tufekci engages with Adam Mosseri, who runs the Facebook News Feed Tufekci:…