Esther Duflo wins Clark medal
MIT’s influential poverty researcher heralded as best economist under age 40.
Search Stories
3 Questions: David Jones on heart problems
Physician and historian of medicine explains why bypass surgery is popular even though it fails to help many patients.
An altered state
As Mexico’s violence persists, an MIT scholar says a solution must address the economic dislocations tied to the country’s rapid urbanization.
The deep roots of inequality
MIT economics student’s study of Peru shows how practices from hundreds of years ago can influence prosperity today. ‘Pathbreaking,’ says a Harvard economist.
Friends, family gather to honor Paul Samuelson
At memorial service, Nobel-winning economist’s ‘warmth, wit and humility’ are recalled.
Using plants to purify canal water
Researchers outline a natural way to clean Italy's polluted Pontine Marshes
‘Failure is good’
In a talk to promote his new book, MIT’s Simon Johnson lambastes a finance industry he sees as lacking a healthy fear of losing money.
A manufacturing renaissance for America?
At an MIT forum, experts examine new ways to pursue a good old idea: making things.
Rough calculations
Sanjoy Mahajan’s new book, Street-Fighting Mathematics, lays out practical tools for educated guessing and down-and-dirty problem-solving
The sound and the query
Why do questions take the form they do? An MIT linguist explains how the noises we make help to shape the sentences we speak.
Explained: Regression analysis
Sure, it’s a ubiquitous tool of scientific research, but what exactly is a regression, and what is its use?
In MIT visit, Miliband presses for Afghan peace deal
British foreign secretary uses Compton Lecture to urge Afghanistan’s government to reach out to insurgents.
3 Questions: David Miliband on Afghanistan’s future
Before delivering the Compton Lecture, Britain’s foreign secretary sat down with MIT News to discuss the state of the war in Afghanistan
3 Questions: Hunt Allcott on behavioral economics and the energy crisis
Can understanding human irrationality help solve our energy problems? An MIT researcher explains