Prof. Charles Stewart explains in The Washington Post that ballot recounts help to determine the accuracy of the initial vote count method in an election. Prof. Steward predicts that the Wisconsin recount will uncover “only small discrepancies between the election night totals” and will show that scanners are more accurate than humans at counting votes.
New York Times reporter Paul Vitello writes that Prof. Emeritus Bruce Mazlish, a historian known for his psychoanalytical biographies of world leaders, died at age 93. Mazlish’s “experience teaching European history to young scientists and engineers inspired a lifelong interest in understanding the divide between science and the humanities.”
Writing for the Financial Times, Prof. Daron Acemoglu examines how a new administration in Washington, D.C. could impact Turkey’s growth. While the implications “are likely to be dire for the Turkish economy,” Acemoglu adds that “even modest attempts towards a more inclusive economy can spearhead rapid and relatively high-quality growth.”
Prof. Michel DeGraff speaks with WGBH reporter Judith Kogan about why people around the world use different words to describe animal sounds, such as a turkey’s distinctive “gobble.” “Your native language formats your mind to perceive animal sounds based on your own native language," DeGraff explains.
A study co-authored by Prof. David Autor shows that voters living in regions of the country that saw an increase in Chinese imports were more receptive to President-elect Donald Trump’s anti-free trade message, writes Bob Davis for The Wall Street Journal. The researchers found “import competition from China damaged local economies and undermined employment and wages.”
In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. Charles Stewart explains that provisional ballots could delay this year’s election results. “We should be prepared for the possibility that provisional ballots take us into extra innings. This won’t be a sign that the system is ‘rigged,’ but that it’s working as designed,” Stewart explains.
Writing for The New York Times, David Leonhardt highlights a study by MIT researchers that examines the effectiveness of charter schools. Prof. Joshua Angrist explains that the study found that “relative to other things that social scientists and education policy people have tried to boost performance — class sizes, tracking, new buildings — these schools are producing spectacular gains.”
In a letter to The Boston Globe, graduate student Elizabeth Setren writes about her study examining whether charter schools can help benefit special education and English-language learners. Setren writes that her findings “paint a picture of impressive gains and increased inclusion for special-education students and English-language learners at Boston charters.”
Mickey Edwards of The Los Angeles Times reviews Prof. Heather Hendershot’s book about William Buckley. “Hendershot is clever to have used his 'Firing Line' television show as an introduction to both Buckley and the rise of conservative intellectual opposition to the liberal orthodoxy,” writes Edwards.
The Washington Post’s Karin Brulliard writes that MIT researchers have found that like health care costs for humans, the cost of health care spending on pets is rising. Brulliard explains that the researchers found it was “‘noteworthy’ that the parallels between the two systems exist even though insurance and government regulation…are less prevalent in pet health care.”
In an article for Wired, Issie Lapowsky interviews Prof. Charles Stewart about the fairness of the American voting system. Lapowsky explains that Stewart has been tracking voter experiences since 2008, and his research has “become the basis of other election administration research like the studies conducted by the Brennan Center.”
In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. Charles Stewart III explains that since the 2012 election, voter confidence in the election process has become increasingly polarized. “Democrats are now more confident in an accurate vote count — for their vote or nationwide. Republicans, meanwhile, have changed little,” Prof. Stewart writes.
Washington Post reporter Carolyn Johnson writes that a study by Prof. Amy Finkelstein finds that expanding Medicaid access increases emergency room visits. “People who gained Medicaid visited the emergency room about 65 percent more often than individuals who did not gain Medicaid in the first six months -- and the trend continued out to two years.”
NPR’s Steve Inskeep notes that in a 2010 episode of “The Simpsons” Milhouse van Houten predicts that Prof. Bengt Holmström will win a Nobel Prize in economics. Inskeep jokes that Milhouse was a visionary, who “knew way before the rest of the world that MIT's Bengt Holmström had genius in him.”
Nobel laureate Prof. Bengt Holmström speaks with NPR’s Steve Inskeep about the importance of incentives. Holmström recounts becoming interested in incentives while working at a multinational conglomerate after realizing computers could not “replace a lot of what the human mind is thinking,” adding that incentives are how “you influence people’s behavior.”