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Prof. Emeritus Stanley Fischer PhD '69, “one of the most influential economists of recent decades,” has died at age 81, reports Greg Ip for The Wall Street Journal. Through his various roles, “Fischer helped shape how an entire generation of central bankers and economic policymakers do their jobs,” writes Ip.
Prof. Emeritus Stanley Fischer PhD '69, an economist and central banker who helped “guide global economic policies and defuse financial crises for decades,” has died at the age of 81, reports James R. Hagerty for The New York Times. While at MIT, “Mr. Fischer became a magnet for graduate students,” writes Hagerty. “He encouraged them to visit him every week, ‘especially if you have nothing to say.’”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with WBUR On Point host Meghna Chakrabarti about the role of trust in institutions. “Institutions crucially depend on the trust that people place in them,” says Acemoglu. “Corruption is the tip of the spear, because once you start suspecting that people in high office are using their position for corrupt ends, it tarnishes the entire set of institutions. And I think that's the situation we're in, and we're getting deeper and deeper.”
In an article for Foreign Affairs, Prof. Mai Hassan writes about the current state of the civil war in Sudan and hopes for a cease-fire or peace deal. “Because the conflict is overwhelmingly driven by a struggle over regional power and resources, rather than any larger political vision for the country,” writes Hassan, “it remains likely that alliances will keep shifting, militias will keep defecting, and breakaway groups will keep forming. Sadly, instead of either peace or partition, Sudan’s most likely future is more war.”
Prof. David Autor speaks with Rogé Karma from The Atlantic about the role of tariffs in the American manufacturing industry. “Letting free trade rip is an easy policy,” says Autor. “Putting up giant tariffs is an easy policy. Figuring out some middle path is hard. Deciding what sectors to invest in and protect is hard. Doing the work to build new industries is hard. But this is how great nations lead.”
Six MIT faculty members – Prof. Emerita Lotte Bailyn, Prof. Gareth McKinley, Prof. Nasser Rabbat, Prof. Susan Silbey, Prof. Anne Whiston Spirn, and Prof. Catherine Wolfram – have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, reports Sarah Mesdjian for The Boston Globe. “The academy aims to honor accomplished leaders in a wide array of fields and ‘cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people,’” explains Mesdjian.
Writing for Financial Times, Prof. Daron Acemoglu discusses the issues behind monopolies ahead of an EU ruling on Google’s advertising technology. “For too long, Silicon Valley has dictated the rules of the internet, shaping markets to serve its own interests while competition dwindles and inequality soars,” writes Acemoglu. “By setting course to break up Google’s advertising monopoly, Europe can show that democratic institutions, not monopolies, should shape our digital future.”
Prof. David Autor speaks with Financial Times reporter Martin Wolf about the impact of AI on the workforce. “I think [AI] will be quite important, it will be pervasive, it will be transformative in some activities, but I don’t think in general, it’s going to cause an economic implosion of work anytime in the near future,” explains Autor.
Anantha Chandrakasan, MIT’s chief innovation and strategy officer and dean of MIT’s School of Engineering, speaks with Boston Globe reporter Jon Chesto about the new MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance. “A great amount of innovation happens in academia. We have a longer view into the future,” says Chandrakasan. He adds that while companies like GE Vernova have “the ability to get products out quickly to scale up, to manufacture, we have the ability to think past the short-term. ... It’s super smart of them to surround themselves with this incredible talent in academia. That will allow us to make the kind of breakthroughs that will keep U.S. competitiveness at its peak.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Lauren Weber spotlights a paper by Prof. David Autor that finds import tariffs have had little effect on job creation and preservation in the U.S., particularly in parts of the country with tariff-protected industries. Autor and his colleagues found “manufacturing employment didn’t increase, though it also didn't fall (other research found that U.S. companies had a hard time selling more products abroad, which may help explain why manufacturers didn't add jobs),” Weber explains. “Worse than that, retaliatory tariffs from trading partners led to job losses, especially in agriculture.”
E&E News reporter Christa Marshall writes that the new MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance will “scale sustainable energy systems across the globe” and advance breakthrough low-carbon technologies.
Prof. Sarah Williams speaks with Newsweek reporter Micah McCartney about how China’s construction boom lead to largely uninhabited developments dubbed “ghost cities”. Williams explains: “They needed a return on their investment, so they opened up new land and new loans for overleveraged real estate developers, so those developers could use these loans to pay back previous loans. The easy way to describe it is that it is a bit of a Ponzi scheme."
Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Marketplace reporter Elizabeth Trovall about looming labor shortages within the caregiving industry and elder care. “We have no plan for credibly meeting that massive change in the long-term care needs of our population,” says Gruber.
Prof. Jeffrey Harris speaks with Newsweek reporter Jasmine Laws about how a recession could impact Medicare. "A recession could impact many critical decisions of federal lawmakers, private insurers, healthcare providers, and patients,” says Harris. “The U.S. Congress may decide to let stand the Medicare physician payment cut that became effective on January 1 of this year. Reduced physician payments under conventional Medicare may cause doctors, hospitals and other providers to shift their resources toward the care of younger, commercially insured patients."
Prof. David Autor speaks with Financial Times reporter Tom Davis about the impact of dataism – the belief that through gathering increasing amounts of information businesses can make the right decisions and create value - and automation in business management. “You can think of automation as a machine that takes a job’s inputs and does it for the worker,” says Autor. “[And] augmentation as a technology that increases the variety of things that people can do, the quality of things people can do, or their productivity”.