Policy

“Innovation is born of openness to futures that are not easily imaginable," says Caley Horan, assistant professor of history. "History reminds us that many ideas, institutions, and organizational structures that now seem natural and inevitable did not always exist. In doing so, it throws open the door to boundless possibility.”

3 Questions: Historian Caley Horan on the rise of private insurance in the U.S.

Assistant professor explores how risk sharing and mutual aid shifted to individual forms of protection.

July 3, 2018

“What we discovered is, very little [Medicare] money is spent on people who we know with high probability are going to die in a short amount of time,” says Amy Finkelstein, a professor in MIT’s Department of Economics and co-author of a paper in the journal Science.

The value of late-in-life health care spending

Study debunks notion that large chunks of Medicare go to futile end-of-life care.

June 28, 2018

An MIT study estimates the impact of a trade war between the U.S. and the rest of world when the U.S. alone does not comply with the Paris Agreement. The aim of such a trade war would be to compel the U.S. to meet its Paris pledge.

What is the likely outcome of a trade war between the U.S. and the rest of the world?

Study highlights economic losses for participating countries.

June 26, 2018

Bruno Verdini discusses strategies for natural resources negotiation with MIT Energy Initiative Communications Director Emily Dahl at a MITEI seminar.

3Q: Winning together in negotiation

Bruno Verdini, executive director of the MIT-Harvard Mexico Negotiation Program, discusses his award-winning research on negotiating for mutual gains.

June 21, 2018

Bruno Verdini explored the keys to successful high-stakes negotiations by interviewing dozens of people who worked together to settle long-running disputes between the United States and Mexico over shared natural resources in the Colorado River and the Gulf of Mexico.

Natural resource negotiations for mutual gains

Through research on U.S. - Mexico hydrocarbon drilling rights negotiation, Bruno Verdini provides insights on how to resolve conflicts through proactive collaboration.

June 21, 2018

When PhD student Tiziana Smith isn’t at her computer refining or running her models, she can be found organizing activities and initiatives to help her fellow graduate students find mentors and become leaders themselves.

How many people can China feed?

Graduate student Tiziana Smith studies links between water availability and crop yields in the world’s most populous country.

May 30, 2018

Abigail Krich, founder and president of Boreas Renewables, discusses New England's impending energy market transition from natural gas domination to a greater proliferation of renewables.

3 Questions: New England’s wholesale electricity markets

Boreas Renewables' Abigail Krich discusses the incompatibility of New England’s electricity market structure with achieving carbon emissions reduction goals.

May 23, 2018

“We really need to have some rational way of thinking about telemedicine across state boundaries as well as across national boundaries,” says Amar Gupta.

Removing health care barriers and boundaries

Through transformative use of telemedicine, researcher and instructor Amar Gupta hopes to achieve better, quicker, and less expensive health care for all.

May 22, 2018

A new study co-authored by an MIT political scientist shows that state policies in the U.S. from 1936 through 2014 have been responsive to public opinion — and have become even more aligned with it in recent decades.

People power

State-level policy in the U.S. is responsive to public opinion, study shows.

May 11, 2018

A workshop preceding the Make the Breast Pump Not Suck hackathon guided participants in team-building and brainstorming exercises. More than half the attendees were hackathon first-timers.

Addressing bias, inequality, and accessibility in breastfeeding

Make the Breast Pump Not Suck hackathon at the Media Lab emphasizes social and political issues over engineering.

May 4, 2018

Signifying the forest, the Climate Changed Symposium dinner appetizer was a trio of dried, preserved and foraged mushrooms — fungi known to help the soil store carbon dioxide and thus slow the pace of climate change.

What will we eat in the year 2050?

Climate Changed Symposium combines art and science to envision the global food system under climate change.

April 30, 2018

At the MIT Policy Hackathon, interdisciplinary teams worked together to find policy solutions to real societal challenges.

Using data science to improve public policy

MIT Policy Hackathon, run by students within MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, seeks interdisciplinary solutions to societal challenges.

April 23, 2018

MIT students and postdocs visited Congress to advocate for increased federal spending on science and engineering.

MIT students and postdocs visit Capitol Hill to advocate for increases in federal science funding

Members of MIT's Science Policy Initiative meet with members of Congress on Science-Engineering-Technology Congressional Visits Day 2018.

April 9, 2018

Putting a price on carbon, in the form of a fee or tax on the producers of fossil fuels, can be an effective way to curb emissions of greenhouse gases.

Carbon taxes could make significant dent in climate change, study finds

Several different carbon-pricing approaches would help reduce emissions, and some would be fair as well, researchers report.

April 6, 2018

David Goldston, director of MIT’s Washington Office

3Q: David Goldston on the new federal budget

Director of MIT Washington Office calls bill “very good news for science funding.”

April 4, 2018

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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