News

Attorneys: Cook County eviction court proceedings are ‘black box’

Attorneys: Cook County eviction court proceedings are ‘black box’

December 21, 2016

Chicago Reader | The odds of winning in eviction court are stacked against tenants; a lack of transparency is part of the problem, writes Maya Dukmasova. Cites Evicted by Harvard sociologist Matthew Desmond on the role of evictions as a major contributing factor to entering and remaining entrenched in poverty.

The Best Books of 2016

The Best Books of 2016

December 21, 2016

Chicago Tribune | Ten selections, including Evicted, by Matthew Desmond, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences.

The Carnegie Interviews: Matthew Desmond

The Carnegie Interviews: Matthew Desmond

December 21, 2016

The Booklist Reader | One in a series of interviews with each of the finalists for the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard.

The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China. It’s Automation.

The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China. It’s Automation.

December 21, 2016

The New York Times | Lawrence Katz quoted. “Over the long haul, clearly automation’s been much more important — it’s not even close,” said  Katz, an economics professor at Harvard who studies labor and technological change.

Labor economists say there are ways to ease the transition for workers whose jobs have been displaced by robots...Few are policies that Mr. Trump has said he will pursue. “Just allowing the private market to automate without any support is a recipe for blaming immigrants and trade and other things, even when it’s the long-[run] impact of technology,” said Mr. Katz, who was the Labor Department’s chief economist under President Clinton.

Trump Is Going After Health Care. Will Democrats Push Back?

Trump Is Going After Health Care. Will Democrats Push Back?

December 21, 2016

The New York Times | By Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology. "...Repealing Obamacare means eliminating the taxes that subsidize health care for low- and middle-income people," a point that must be made clear, Skocpol writes. "That huge and immediate tax cut for the rich would lead to the demise of subsidized health insurance for millions of less privileged Americans in rural, suburban, and urban communities."

Luk Vandenberghe

Luk H. Vandenberghe, PhD, receives RPB Nelson Trust Award for Retinitis Pigmentosa

December 21, 2016

Boston, Mass. — Luk H. Vandenberghe, PhD, Director of the Grousbeck Gene Therapy Center at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, has been awarded a Nelson Trust Award for Retinitis Pigmentosa by Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) in the amount of $100,000 over two years. The Nelson Trust Award was established to stimulate, strengthen and accelerate research to improve...

Read more about Luk H. Vandenberghe, PhD, receives RPB Nelson Trust Award for Retinitis Pigmentosa

In Memoriam: Thomas C. Schelling, 1921–2016

December 21, 2016

The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs solemnly acknowledges the loss of one of its founders, Thomas C. Schelling

Image of Thomas SchellingA Nobel Prize-winning economist and arms control theorist during the Cold War, Schelling passed away on December 13, at the age of 95.

“Tom was not only a brilliant economist, he was a delightful colleague who was a crucial part of the founding faculty of the Center,” remembers Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Faculty Associate, who joined the CFIA in 1961 as a research assistant.... Read more about In Memoriam: Thomas C. Schelling, 1921–2016