Stephen
J. Dubner, Freakonomics: Does “Early Education” Come Way Too Late?
“Kids could be
really high achievers in terms of math and reading but gain nothing from our
program if they didn’t have these sort of sit-still skills. But on the other
hand if you were above average on these non-cognitive skills, you got huge
benefits from our program. So what does this mean? Well, for one thing, I think
it intuitively makes sense — that there’s a threshold for being able to learn.
If the kids can’t concentrate, it’s hard for them to learn and no matter how
hard the parents try it’s going to be hard to make gains. On the other hand,
what it’s really valuable for from the perspective of public policy is that it
really tells you where to target your resources.”
Roland
Fryer, NBER: What Makes Charter Schools Work? For Whom Do They Work Best? Charter schools one of the most innovative
developments in education reform in the past few decades.
James
Surowiecki, The New Yorker: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools. Not
too long ago, for-profit colleges looked like the future of education.
Targeting so-called “nontraditional students”—who are typically older, often
have jobs, and don’t necessarily go to school full time—they advertised
aggressively to attract business, claiming to impart marketable skills that
would lead to good jobs. They invested heavily in online learning, which
enabled them to operate nationwide and to keep costs down….Today, the
for-profit-education bubble is deflating. Regulators have been cracking down on
the industry’s misdeeds—most notably, lying about job-placement rates. In May,
Corinthian Colleges, once the second-largest for-profit chain in the country,
went bankrupt. Enrollment at the University of Phoenix has fallen by more than
half since 2010; a few weeks ago, the Department of Defense said that it
wouldn’t fund troops who enrolled there. Other institutions have experienced
similar declines.
Paul
Krugman, NYT: Hyperglobalization and Global Inequality. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of work by
my CUNY colleague Branko Milanovic showing that if you look at income growth by
percentile of the whole world population for the past 25 years, you see “twin
peaks”: rapid growth near the middle, representing China’s middle class, and at
the top, representing the global elite, with a sag in the region representing
the OECD working class. But was it always thus? I asked Branko what a similar
picture looked like for the previous generation — and he has obliged.
Davide
Furceri, Prakash Loungani, IMF: Openness and Inequality: Distributional Impacts
of Capital Account Liberalization. It is well accepted that trade generates winners and
losers. The past few decades have seen increases not just in trade in goods and
services but trade in assets, as countries relax restrictions on the ability of
capital to flow across national boundaries. Surprisingly, while the impact of
trade in goods and services on inequality has been extensively studied, little
attention has been paid to the distributional impacts of opening up capital
markets. Our paper fills this gap. Using a data set for nearly 150 countries
from 1970 to 2010, we show that increases in capital account liberalization are
followed by increases in inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient.
However, we also show two channels where evidence of this association is
limited: First, the impact of liberalization on inequality is smaller for
countries with higher levels of financial development and inclusion. Second,
the impact is also smaller in cases where the liberalization is not followed by
a crisis.
Henry
J. Aaron, Gary Burtless, Brookings: Potential Effects of the Affordable Care
Act on Income Inequality.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will improve the well-being and incomes of
Americans in the bottom fifth of the income distribution. Under our broadest
and most comprehensive income measure we project that incomes in the bottom
one-fifth of the distribution will increase almost 6%; those in the bottom
one-tenth of the distribution will rise more than 7%. These estimated gains
represent averages. Most people already have insurance coverage that will be
left largely unaffected by reform. Those who gain subsidized insurance will see
bigger percentage gains in their income.
Jesper
Roine, Ekonomistas: Är det verkligen sant att ”vi arbetar mer än någonsin och
mår dåligt”? Vi arbetar
mer än någonsin och mår dåligt. Så varför ska vi ens – när maskinerna kan sköta
jobbet – bry oss?”. Så börjar en uppmärksammad intervju med Roland Paulsen i modemagasinet
Bon som publicerades häromveckan. Den inledningen har två iögonfallande fel och
antyder dessutom en tredje missuppfattning om vad ”arbete” betyder. Det första
och mest uppenbara felet har förstås att göra med konstaterandet att vi
”arbetar mer än någonsin”.
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo,
NBER: Under the Thumb of History? Political Institutions and the Scope for
Action. This paper discusses the two leading views of
history and political institutions. For some scholars, institutions are mainly
products of historical logic, while for others, accidents, leaders, and
decisions have a significant impact. We argue that while there is clear
evidence that history matters and has long-term effects, there is not enough
data to help us distinguish between the two views. Faced with this uncertainty,
what is a social scientist to do? We argue that given the possibility that
policy decisions indeed make a difference, it makes sense to assume they do and
to try to improve policymaking
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