Robin Young of WBUR speaks with Professor Jim Walsh about the crisis unfolding in Iraq ahead of President Obama’s address. Walsh predicts that Obama will attempt to find a middle course between those calling for intervention and those hoping to keep the U.S. from being involved further in Iraq.
Live Science reporter Tanya Lewis highlights Shigeru Miyagawa’s work exploring the origins of human language. Miyagawa's hypothesis, “could explain how human language, which can theoretically produce infinite meanings, developed from the limited forms of communication seen in the rest of the animal world,” Lewis reports.
Wall Street Journal reporter Irving Wladawsky-Berger examines Prof. David Autor’s research on income inequality. “Mr. Autor estimates that the difference in the yearly earnings between a college-educated two-income family and a high school-educated two-income family has risen by $28,000 between 1979 and 2012,” he writes.
David Wessel writes for The Wall Street Journal about Professor Athanasios Orphanides’ research into the European Union’s management of the economic crisis. “Rather than work towards containing total losses, politics led governments to focus on shifting losses to others,” says Orphanides.
Douglas Martin writes for The New York Times about the late Professor Morris Adelman who died at his home in Newton on May 8. Adelman spent six decades as a faculty member in the MIT economics department.
The Economist looks at the work of Professor David Autor while investigating how technological advances are influencing future employment. Autor’s research indicates that the fact that a job can be automated does not guarantee it will be and other factors, such as the cost of labor, play a role.
Kelly Kennedy of USA Today reports on Prof. Jonathan Gruber’s research showing that health insurance premiums went up 10% on average in the three years before the Affordable Care Act took effect. "The two main lessons are the notion that there was a pre-existing double-digit trend, and that it was variable," says Gruber.
In a piece for CNBC, Dan Margan reports that a new study by Professor Jonathan Gruber shows that individual health care premiums experienced large hikes and a high variability in rate hikes before the Affordable Care Act took effect.
“Economist David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the median woman with a college degree earned about $23,000 more a year than a woman who terminated her education once she earned her high school diploma,” writes Washington Post reporter Joann Weiner.
“According to a paper by Mr. Autor published Thursday in the journal Science, the true cost of a college degree is about negative $500,000,” David Leonhardt writes in a New York Times piece about David Autor’s research on inequality.
“The dynamic at the Federal Reserve may be about to change,” writes Sara Eisen of CNBC about MIT alumnus and former professor Stanley Fischer’s appointment to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. “Fischer's presence is likely to change the shape of the Fed in a variety of ways.”
In an article for The Washington Post, Jim Tankersley reports on a new Science article by Professor David Autor. In the article Autor contends that inequality, driven by varying levels of education, has risen dramatically among the 99 percent.
Wall Street Journal reporter Brenda Cronin features David Autor’s new research on inequality. “Two ‘destructive’ points that Mr. Autor tries to skewer with his most recent work are the idea that prospects are dim for all but the financial elite—and the notion that too many students are giving rise to a “college bubble,” Cronin writes.
In an article for Forbes, Yevgeniy Feyman and Fil Babalievsky report on new research from Professor Jonathan Gruber that tackles the question of how competition among insurers impacts premium rates.
In an article for The Boston Globe, Bloomberg News reports that former professor and MIT alumnus Stanley Fischer was confirmed to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors by the Senate. Fischer previously served as the governor of the Bank of Israel.