Dean Melissa Nobles describes her research “unearthing records that tell the stories of yesterday’s George Floyds” and the importance of such historical data. Solutions to state-sponsored racial violence, explains Nobles, “depend, in part, on solid data about police violence and its victims… we must not forget the thousands of Black victims of police violence whose graves lay unmarked and lives unsung.”
A new report by MIT and Harvard researchers outlines a set of strategies for improving schooling during the Covid-19 pandemic, including focusing on core lessons, sparking joy and strengthening bonds between teachers and students, reports Naomi Martin for The Boston Globe.
Fast Company reporter Kristin Toussaint writes about a new study by Prof. David Autor that finds middle class jobs for non-college grads are disappearing, particularly for Black and Latino workers. Autor suggest that higher minimum wages “are surprisingly effective at improving the incomes of workers in low wage jobs,” adding that “they don’t seem to have noticeable adverse effects on employment.”
Prof. David Autor has found opportunities for minority workers in cities have receded, particularly those without college degrees, reports Jonnelle Marte for Reuters. “As the middle hollowed out, (minority workers) were more exposed to middle-skilled work, and net of that, they were also over-represented at the low end and under-represented at the high end,” says Autor.
Bloomberg reporter Peter Coy writes that a new study by Prof. David Autor finds cities are no longer “escalators of opportunity” for people in middle-paying jobs, in particular Black and Latino workers. Coy writes that Autor proposes, “one solution is to raise minimum wages in cities, which would raise the living standards of low-income workers.”
A study by Prof. David Autor finds that cities no longer guarantee middle-wage opportunities for Black and Latino workers, reports Andrew Van Dam for The Washington Post. "Changes in occupational structure, in cities, have been larger and arguably less favorable among Blacks and Hispanics than among whites," says Autor.
Prof. Fox Harrell speaks with New York Times reporter Joshua Rothkopf about the educational potential of deepfake technology. “To have the savvy to negotiate a political media landscape where a video could potentially be a deepfake, or a legitimate video could be called a deepfake, I think those are cases people need to be aware of,” says Harrell.
Prof. T.L. Taylor speaks with The Washington Post’s Liz Clarke about the ways in which female gamers are often harassed and excluded. “What we have not fully grappled with is that the right to play extends to the digital space and gaming,” says Taylor. “For me, it is tied to democracy and civic engagement. It’s about participating in culture and having a voice and visibility.”
MIT Profs. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo as well as Prof. Michael Kremer of Harvard, who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, will donate their $916,000 in prize money to the Weiss Fund for Research in Development Economics. “The donations will fund research grants that support the work of development economists and students through 2035,” reports Abbi Matheson for The Boston Globe.
Speaking with Bloomberg’s Rafaela Lindeberg, Prof. Abhijit Banerjee suggests that the U.S. must increase taxes in order to fight poverty more effectively. “If you actually want to deal with poverty, happiness and anger in the U.S., the government will need to have more resources,” says Banerjee. “I’m quite comfortable saying that, yes, taxes have to be raised.”
Prof. Esther Duflo speaks with Molly Wood, host of the Marketplace Tech podcast, about the ways in which she uses artificial intelligence to enhance her poverty research. Machine learning allows researchers to pinpoint “where the program is the most effective, and therefore where a government with limited budget would want to expand it,” explains Duflo.
WBUR’s Bob Shaffer reports on a deepfake video created by MIT's Center for Advanced Virtuality, which aims to spark awareness of deepfake technologies. The goal is to highlight how deepfakes are an extension “of a continuum of misinformation that we all should be aware of and should have our ears tuned to, if we can," said co-director Halsey Burgund.
Profs. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo speak with PBS NewsHour’s Paul Solman about their use of randomized control trials to address global poverty. “[T]hat's what the Duflo/Banerjee research is all about, trying to reduce the guesswork of economic development policy by seeing what seems to work, and what doesn't, at least in its current form,” explains Solman.
A new book co-authored by Prof. Daron Acemoglu examines how countries become “prosperous, stable, well-governed, law-abiding, democratic and free societies.” “Their simple answer is: it is hard,” writes Martin Wolf for the Financial Times. “Their deep answer is: ‘Liberty originates from a delicate balance of power between state and society.’”
Tara Roberts, a fellow at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, writes for National Geographic about her experience with Diving With Purpose, a nonprofit that funds “underwater archaeology advocates” who search for and document slave trade shipwrecks. “Fragments of these wooden ships are notoriously hard to find after centuries in the water, but such a small number of finds also points to a larger societal disinterest in their discovery.”