Prof. Tavneet Suri speaks with HuffPost reporter Laura Paddison about her research exploring the effectiveness of the universal basic income (UBI). “We do think the UBI will provide some ‘insurance’ against bad events,” says Suri. “If something bad happens, you have a fallback.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Guardian reporter Lauren Aratani about the impact of automation on inequality. While AI has “tremendous potential for making humans more productive,” Acemoglu notes that it also “has been a major driver in the increase in inequality.”
Axios reporter Bryan Walsh writes that during the virtual AI and the Work of the Future Congress, Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, noted that “education and training are central to helping the current and next generation thrive in the labor market.”
Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, speaks with Annie Nova of CNBC about the Task Force’s new report, which lays out recommendations for ensuring Americans are able to secure good jobs in an era of automation. “We’re suggesting that people have access to affordable education and training,” says Reynolds. “I think there’s a real opportunity to help transition people and educate workers without four-year degrees.”
Axios reporter Bryan Walsh writes that a new report by MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future makes policy recommendations for ensuring American workers are able to secure good jobs. “If we deploy automation in the same labor market system we have now," says Prof. David Mindell, "we're going to end up with the same results.”
Three years after President L. Rafael Reif delivered an “intellectual call to arms” to examine the impact of technology on jobs, the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future has published its final set of recommendations. “In an extraordinarily comprehensive effort, they included labor market analysis, field studies and policy suggestions for changes in skills-training programs, the tax code, labor laws and minimum-wage rates,” writes Steve Lohr for The New York Times.
A new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that the economic damage from Covid-19 is more widespread nationwide than mortality impacts, reports Roni Caryn Rabin and Gina Kolata for The New York Times. “Health crises concentrated in one part of the country and one age group may have substantial economic spillovers that are felt throughout the rest of the country and on other age groups,” the authors wrote.
Writing for Wired, principal research scientist Andrew McAfee argues that human populations and economies have continued to grow, while also identifying ways to reduce their carbon footprints. “To ensure that these greenhouse gas declines continue to spread and accelerate, we should apply the lessons we've learned from previous pollution reduction success. In particular, we should make it expensive to emit carbon,” writes McAfee.
A new white paper by Prof. Daron Acemoglu and graduate student Andrea Mandera finds that the U.S. tax code incentivizes companies to invest in automation rather than employees, reports Peter Coy for Bloomberg. “Favorable taxation of capital leads to excessive automation,” explains Acemoglu.
New York Times reporter David Leonhardt spotlights a new study by Profs. David Autor, Joshua Angrist and Amanda Pallais of Harvard that examines the impacts of free public college for low-income students. The researchers found that focusing on lower-income students, "could have a big impact while also leaving more money available for other priorities, be it health care, climate change — or investing more money in the quality of education at community colleges.”
A study co-authored by Prof. Jonathan Gruber finds that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate did not significantly impact coverage rates, reports Sarah Kliff for The New York Times. “The mandate made a difference, but not a huge difference in terms of the numbers of people signing up,” says Gruber.
Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with GBH’s Arun Rath about his study showing that a lack of coordination between states on their reopening plans can lead to an influx in Covid-19 cases. Rath also spotlights the Broad Institute’s work processing over 1.5 million diagnostic tests for coronavirus since March 25.
In a piece exploring why certain countries experience wealth or poverty, The Economist spotlights Prof. Daron Acemoglu’s book, “The Narrow Corridor,” and recent research by Acemoglu and Prof. Simon Johnson. The Economist notes that Acemoglu and Johnnson “found a further element of randomness which may explain contemporary patterns of wealth and poverty—namely, which countries are more prone to certain diseases.”
Profs. Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee join NPR’s Planet Money for overrated or underrated, a game in which Banerjee and Duflo, winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, “rate everything from bread to foreign aid to dating an economist.”
A new working paper by MIT researchers details how the use of a universal basic income (UBI) helped people in Kenya with difficult economic situations, writes Kelsey Piper for Vox. The researchers found that the UBI provided “income benefits in good times and then stability benefits during bad times,” says Prof. Tavneet Suri.