Prof. Thomas Levenson writes for The Boston Globe about how to reduce gun violence, highlighting research showing that gun owners and their friends and family are most likely to be the victims of gun violence. “Many victims could be saved if it weren’t so easy to bring death upon themselves in their moments of greatest distress,” writes Levenson.
In an article for The Washington Post, graduate students Elizabeth Dekeyser and Michael Freedman write about their research examining the impact of anti-immigration rhetoric on voters in Europe. They found that “elections with high levels of nationalist and anti-immigrant rhetoric affect individual attitudes much more strongly than those with low levels of such rhetoric.”
Forbes contributor Howard Gleckman highlights a study by Prof. Amy Finkelstein that shows only five percent of Medicare spending goes toward end-of-life costs. Gleckman writes that the study supports the argument that “using spending in the last year of life as a proxy for futile care is deeply flawed—because we are very bad at predicting who is going to die and who is not.”
Prof. Marcia Bartusiak speaks with Radio Boston’s Evan Horowitz about her book, “Dispatches from Planet 3.” Bartusiak explains that she was inspired to “take a new exciting finding and provide the backstory. All of these essays are taking something new - a new idea, a new discovery - and showing that it had an origin or a seed in the past.”
MIT alumnus William Nordaus has been awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work studying the interaction between climate change and the economy, reports Dave Keyton and Jim Heintz for the AP. Nordhaus shared the award with Paul Romer, who also conducted graduate work at MIT.
Prof. Amy Finkelstein speaks with Lisa Mullins of WBUR’s All Things Considered about winning a MacArthur grant for her work examining health economics. Finkelstein explains that the goal of her work is to “reduce the amount of rhetoric in health care policy discussion and increase the amount of evidence.”
Boston Globe reporter Michael Levenson writes that Profs. Amy Finkelstein and Lisa Parks have been selected as recipients of the MacArthur “genius grant.” Finkelstein notes that the award will allow her to take more risks with her research, while Parks plans to use the award to “strengthen MIT’s Global Media Technologies and Cultures Lab and deepen the university’s ties to Africa, where she does research,” Levenson explains.
Profs. Amy Finkelstein and Lisa Parks have been named MacArthur Fellows, reports Joe Barrett for The Wall Street Journal. Barett explains that Finkelstein “conducts studies in the economics of health care; among her findings is that Medicaid expansion increases self-reported health and financial security, but also increases use of the emergency room and has no significant impact on many measures of physical health.”
A study co-authored by Prof. Amy Finkelstein finds that bundling Medicare payments for procedures such as hip and knee replacements reduces the use of post-acute care by about 3 percent, reports Austin Frakt for The New York Times. Finkelstein explains that she examined the use of post-acute care as “it is an area where there is concern about overuse.”
In an article for Quartz about how robots are being used to help care for the elderly, Corinne Purtill highlights Prof. Sherry Turkle’s work on the impact of using machines to satisfy the human need for emotional connection. Putrill cites Turkle’s argument that using machines creates a new relationship where we “feel connected although we are alone.”
Writing for USA Today, Prof. Barry Posen argues for ending the war in Afghanistan. “It is plain that we have no actual strategic policy in Afghanistan — no plausible purpose other than using taxpayer money, the lives of American soldiers and the deaths of Afghan civilians caught in the crossfire to protect U.S. leaders against the possibility of future blame."
A report co-authored by Prof. Charles Stewart calls for fundamental changes to the U.S. voting system to help ensure security, reports the Associated Press. Stewart noted that funds appropriated by Congress earlier this year to help states improve election security are a "down payment" on what’s needed to update the current voting system.
MIT researchers have found that reducing payments to long-term care hospitals could save the U.S. health care system around $5 billion a year, reports Margot Sanger-Katz for The New York Times. “The history of long-term care hospitals suggests the industry will always innovate ahead of you, and you may actually have to roll up your sleeves and find these pockets of waste,” explains Prof. Amy Finkelstein.
In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. Alan Lightman writes about the importance of wasting time. “Our hyperconnected lifestyle, without downtime, threatens our ‘inner selves,’” Lightman explains. “My inner self is that part of me that imagines, that dreams, that explores, that is constantly questioning who I am and what is important to me.”
Prof. Vipin Narang writes for Foreign Affairs about the state of North Korea’s nuclear program following President Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Narang argues that the U.S. should try to “establish a stable deterrence regime rather than pressing for immediate unilateral disarmament, ensuring that nuclear dangers on the Korean Peninsula are managed responsibly.”