Prof. Christopher Palmer speaks with WBUR On Point host Meghna Chakrabarti about Americans and credit card debt, and how an interest rate cap could affect households across the country. “Anytime you have a price control, it has unintended consequences,” says Palmer. “Sometimes they're subtle. In this case, they're not subtle to see. We have lots of countries, lots of places where we've studied the effect of a cap on interest rates, and we see all sorts of unintended consequences.”
Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with David Frum from The Atlantic’s “The David Frum Show” to shed light on the American healthcare system and health care disparities. “The issue in the U.S. is there are the haves and the have-nots—the haves get comparable health care to the rest of the world at a much higher price; the have-nots get worse health care at a much higher price,” says Gruber. “There’s really two fundamental challenges in U.S. health care: There’s disparities, and there’s costs.”
Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Boston 25 reporter Amal Elhewl about the anticipated rise in healthcare premiums. Gruber predicts “prices could jump by as much as $25,000 a year for people like small business owners or entrepreneurs,” Elhewl explains. “If 4 to 5 million people lose health insurance, we’re talking about on the order of 5,000 extra deaths every year because we have not extended these subsidies,” adds Gruber.
Writing for the Financial Times, Principal Research Scientist Florian Berg explores “reasons to be hopeful about the resilience of efforts to tackle environmental issues at the corporate level.” Berg explains: “When looking at reporting on carbon emissions, ESG data and money invested in sustainable investment strategies, we can see big increases in recent years.”
Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Newsweek reporter Jasmine Laws about the rise of health insurance premiums in the United States. “States with very active management and lots of competition on the exchanges will see the lowest increases,” says Gruber.
Prof. Pierre Azoulay speaks with WBUR’s Martha Bebinger about a new study examining the potential impact of NIH budget cuts on the development of new medicines. Azoulay and his colleagues found that “more than half of drugs approved by the FDA since 2000 used NIH-funded research that would likely not have happened if the NIH had operated with a 40% smaller budget,” Bebinger explains.
Fierce Biotech reporter Darren Incorvaia writes that a new study by MIT researchers demonstrates how potential NIH budget cuts could endanger the development of new medications. The researchers found that if the NIH budget had been 40% smaller from 1980 to 2007, the level of NIH cuts currently being proposed, “the science underlying numerous drugs approved in the 21st century would not have been funded,” Incorvaia explains. The findings suggest that “massive cuts of the kind that are being contemplated right now could endanger the intellectual foundations of the drugs of tomorrow,” explains Professor Pierre Azoulay.
A new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that more than half of the drugs approved by the FDA since 2000 are connected to NIH research that would be impacted by proposed 40 percent budget cuts, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News.
Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu participated in a “global dialogue on artificial intelligence governance” at the United Nations, reports Steve Lohr for The New York Times. “The AI quest is currently focused on automating a lot of things, sidelining and displacing workers,” says Acemoglu.
In an opinion piece for the Financial Times, Prof. Evan Lieberman, director of the MIT Center for International Studies, spotlights how states, cities, corporations, and civil society are working to advance climate action. “Today, over 300 U.S. cities have made climate commitments, action plans, or are participating in co-operative initiatives,” Lieberman writes, “Large cities are connecting with global partners through organizations such as C40 Cities, a group of mayors representing some 700mn people worldwide.”
President Emeritus L. Rafael Reif joins Bloomberg’s Wall Street Week to highlight the importance of university research for the U.S. economy. “The federal government funds research at universities,” begins Reif. “Scientific research advances knowledge. And we do it here. And at the same time we educate the leaders of the future, who bring that advanced knowledge into the marketplace. That has been at the heart of the terrific ecosystem of innovation in this country.” He adds: “We have benefitted in the past 80 years from this terrific system, and not having access to that is going to basically kill the source of ideas that will power our economy for the next 80 years.”
Prof. Thomas Kochan speaks with GBH reporter Craig LeMoult about the recent Market Basket’s leadership dispute. “The reality is Market Basket is a community asset,” says Kochan. “People value it because it provides good service, good prices, good jobs. And the public is hungry for a company like that. And they demonstrated that in 2014 when the first episode occurred and everyone rallied around the employees who rallied their CEO.”
Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Newsweek reporter Jasmine Laws about the anticipated price increase in employer health benefit plans for the coming year. Due to higher costs, “some may stop taking up employer coverage altogether while others may move to less expensive plans,” explains Gruber.
Prof. Catherine Wolfram speaks with Financial Times reporter Simon Mundy about the EU’s decision to begin applying the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) next year. “I’m not sure the Europeans quite realize just how powerful the CBAM was as an incentive for other countries to adopt carbon pricing,” says Wolfram. “It’s really started a global conversation.”
Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Newsweek reporter Jasmine Laws about the impact of rising health insurance costs in California. "This is disastrous for both economic security and health,” says Gruber. “Studies have shown that losing insurance is associated with enormous economic risk and worse health, including death."