Politico reporter Joanne Kenen spotlights Prof. Adam Berinsky’s new book, “Political Rumors: Why We Accept Misinformation and How to Fight it.” The book “examines attitudes toward both politics and health, both of which are undermined by distrust and misinformation in ways that cause harm to both individuals and society.”
A new working paper co-authored by Prof. Nathan Wilmers finds that affordable chain restaurants can provide “much more socioeconomic integration than do independently owned commercial businesses — or, for that matter, traditional public institutions,” reports Catherine Rampell for The Washington Post. “The authors analyzed a massive trove of geolocation data to assess where and when Americans come into contact with people of different income classes than themselves,” writes Rampbell, “if they do at all.”
Research by Alden Cheng PhD ‘23 “suggests that big college football games in October 2016 distracted voters from seeing fake news stories that favored Donald Trump,” reports Kevin Lewis for The Boston Globe. “Counties around colleges that played a big game in that month had fewer online searches for pro-Trump fake-news-related terms and had lower percentages of votes for Trump than would otherwise have been expected, given other political demographics,” writes Lewis.
Prof. Charles Stewart III spoke at the National Conference of State Legislatures Summit and addressed the importance of ensuring state and local governments are adequately funding election administration, reports Jennifer A. Kingson for Axios. Stewart noted that presidential elections cost $2 billion-$5 billion to administer nationally, yet most of the nation's 10,000 local jurisdictions are woefully underfunded.
Prof. David Autor and his colleagues have documented China’s impact on manufacturing jobs in the U.S. after joining the World Trade Organization in 2001, an effect known as the China shock, reports Shawn Donnan for Bloomberg in an article about how manufacturing job losses impacted Rockingham County in North Carolina. “Declining populations of young workers, as well as lower pay, have persisted in Rockingham and other communities hardest hit by this China shock, the researchers found in a 2021 paper,” writes Donnan.
This past spring, Prof. J. Phillip Thompson and MIT lecturer Elisabeth Reynolds taught a class at MIT that sent students to work with local officials across the country to help identify available federal funds for climate change mitigation, reports Farah Stockman for The New York Times. “We have to figure out how to use it. Because if we don’t, wealthy communities will go green, and low-income communities will stay brown,” says Thompson. “Unless we do something intentionally to make sure that it is fair, it will bypass poor communities.”
Prof. Adam Berinsky speaks with "Our Body Politic" host Farai Chideya about his new book “Political Rumors: Why We Accept Misinformation and How to Fight it.” Berinksky explains that the, "mere questioning of political reality can have serious downstream consequences because sowing doubt about political policies and claims is much easier than resolving such doubt,” says Berinsky.
MIT Innovation Fellow Brian Deese speaks with CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin about the state of the U.S. economy and the impact of “Bidenomics,” President Joe Biden’s economic philosophy.
Prof. Simon Johnson speaks with Reuters reporter Mark John about the impact of AI on the economy. “AI has got a lot of potential – but potential to go either way,” says Johnson. “We are at a fork in the road.”
A study by MIT researchers shows that “workers have cost employers a 25% tax rate, while the rate of software and equipment has stood around 5%,” write Diego Areas Munhoz and Samantha Handler for Bloomberg. “This lopsidedness in tax code gives employers more reason to invest in automating goods like machines and computer software instead of workers.”
“Power and Progress,” a new book by Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu and Prof. Simon Johnson, has been named one of the best new books on economics by the Financial Times. “The authors’ nuanced take on technological development provides insights on how we can ensure the coming AI revolution leads to widespread benefits for the many, not just the tech bros,” writes Tej Parikh.
Writing for The New York Times, Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu and Prof Simon Johnson make the case that “rather than machine intelligence, what we need is ‘machine usefulness,’ which emphasizes the ability of computers to augment human capabilities. This would be a much more fruitful direction for increasing productivity. By empowering workers and reinforcing human decision making in the production process, it also would strengthen social forces that can stand up to big tech companies.”
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have published a study on why voters who value democracy participate in democratic backsliding, reports Jason Willick for The Washington Post. The authors have identified “a strong linear relationship between perceptions of the other side’s willingness to subvert democracy and partisans’ own willingness to do so,” writes Willick.
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with VOX Talks host Tim Phillips about his new book written with Prof. Simon Johnson, “Power and Progress.” The book explores “how we can redirect the path of innovation,” Phillips explains.
MIT researchers have found that “69 percent of registered voters said they were either very or somewhat confident that votes at a nationwide level were counted as intended,” reports Zach Montellaro for Politico. This research is a “prominent measure of voter trust in election integrity,” writes Montellaro.