Prof. Joshua Angrist was named a winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Economics for “a body of work stretching across decades that has sought to answer the complex questions at the crux of modern political discussion through the lens of proven research,” writes Andrew Brinker for The Boston Globe. “It’s just the greatest honor a person could have,” said Angrist. “It’s a high point of my life.”
Prof. David Autor joins On Point to discuss the economic and social crisis facing American men. “It matters because we care about the welfare of all individuals,” says Autor. “It affects the people they would partner with, their potential spouses. It affects their children. It affects the level of crime incarceration. It affects the tax base. it affects our ability to grow and innovate in all kinds of ways. We're all kind of in this together.”
Speaking at the Fast Company Innovation Festival, Profs. Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee underscored the need for “governments need to do better in addressing different needs within their populations, and providing variations of cash relief for different circumstances.”
Fortune reporter Shawn Tully writes that a new study co-authored by MIT researchers that examines the amount of e-waste Bitcoin generates. The researchers found that: “In 2020, the Bitcoin network processed 120 million transactions,” writes Tully. “For every sale or purchase recorded on the blockchain, the miners disposed of e-waste equal in weight to two iPhone 12 Minis. In other words, the industry trashed the equivalent of 240 million of the 135 gram mobile devices.”
Research affiliate Hunt Allcott speaks with Vice reporter David Shultz about his research on the nutrition gap in America. Allcott and his colleagues “have proposed a sort of expansion on the soda tax, in which unhealthy foods are taxed more, and that money is used to subsidize healthier foods,” writes Shultz.
New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall spotlights Prof. David Autor’s research exploring the state of men in the U.S., including the growing gender gaps in educational attainment and the labor market.
A new study co-authored by Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu finds that countries with older workforces are seeing a larger increase in the use of robots, reports Timothy Aeppel for Reuters. Acemoglu and his colleague Pascual Restrepo of Boston University found that “age alone accounted for 35% of the variation between countries in their adoption of robots, with those having older workers far more likely to adopt the machines.”
Writing for The New York Times, Prof. David Autor explores how the current labor shortage provides an opportunity to improve the quality of jobs in the U.S. “The period of labor scarcity, then, is an opportunity to catalyze better working conditions for those who need them most,” writes Autor.
Prof. David Autor speaks with Kara Miller of GBH’s Innovation Hub about the impact of Covid-19 on the future of work.
Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Margery Eagan and Jared Bowen on Boston Public Radio about the ethics of offering vaccine booster shots in the U.S. when many nations are struggling with vaccine scarcity. “This is really a moment where, going forward, the world has to figure out a more effective strategy,” said Gruber. “We need to think about how we’re going to set up institutions to deal with these kinds of tradeoffs in the future.”
New York Times columnist Peter Coy spotlights a new working paper by Prof. Daron Acemoglu examining democracies. “Democracies breed their own support only when they are successful: all of the effects we estimate work through exposure to democracies that are successful in providing economic growth, peace and political stability, and public goods,” Acemoglu and his co-authors write.
Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu writes for Project Syndicate about why the U.S. and its allies never reconsidered a top-down state-building strategy in Afghanistan. “In viewing nation-building as a top-down, ‘state-first’ process, US policymakers were following a venerable tradition in political science,” writes Acemoglu. “The assumption is that if you can establish overwhelming military dominance over a territory and subdue all other sources of power, you can then impose your will. Yet in most places, this theory is only half right, at best; and in Afghanistan, it was dead wrong.”
Writing for The New York Times, Prof. Amy Finkelstein explores the need to reign in prices of drugs administered by physicians. “Economists tend to favor letting the private sector set prices, but this requires a well-functioning market,” writes Finkelstein. “In trying to base its payments on what other customers pay, Medicare has distorted the market for physician-administered drugs beyond reason.”
In a segment for Planet Money, Greg Rosalsky spotlights a paper co-authored by Prof. Lawrence Schmidt that examines investor performance and finds that elite financiers often excel at buying stocks but perform poorly when it comes to selling stocks. "My big takeaway from this paper is even when we look at a sample of extremely talented, highly incentivized expert investors, they are still people," says Schmidt.
A new study by MIT economists finds that sleeping more may not improve performance or well-being, especially if night-time sleeping is often interrupted, reports Arianne Cohen for Fast Company. “The researchers say their findings suggest that sleep quality may be essential,” writes Cohen. “Participants experienced many nightly sleep interruptions, a saga familiar to anyone who lives with children.”