Bloomberg View reporter Noah Smith spotlights the research of Prof. David Autor, who has been “pioneering ways to make the economics discipline both more credible and more relevant.” To mitigate the impacts of trade, Smith writes that Autor believes the “U.S. government should focus attention on manufacturing industries, and even use industrial policy to bolster the sector.”
A study by MIT and Harvard researchers provides evidence that a new executive order on immigration could reduce the number of doctors in portions of Appalachia and the Industrial Midwest, reports Sam Petulla for NBC News. "In these places, there are lots of incentives for American-trained doctors and foreign-trained doctors to move and work," explains graduate student Michael Stepner.
Boston Globe reporter Felice Freyer writes that a study by MIT and Harvard researchers examines how an executive order on immigration could impact the number of doctors in Appalachia and the Rust Belt. Doctors from the countries included in the order “handle about 14 million patient visits a year…often settling in areas where American doctors are reluctant to work.”
Quentin Palfrey, executive director of J-PAL North America, speaks with Devin Thorpe of Forbes about how J-PAL aims to reduce poverty through academic research. Palfrey explains that “by transforming government and building a movement for evidence-based policy, we can help lift millions in the United States out of poverty.”
Financial Times reporter Tim Harford writes that a study by MIT researchers explores how a country's exports can influence income inequality. The study shows “a relationship between inequality and lack of economic complexity. Holding other things constant, the simplest economies tend to be the most unequal.”
New research by Prof. David Autor shows that the number of young married women has decreased during recent decades, reports Jenna Smialek for Bloomberg News. Autor found that “the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to global trade may be at least partially to blame” for the decline.
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Akst writes that MIT researchers have developed a way to “tap into the insight of the expert minority within a crowd—a minority whose views would otherwise be swamped in a simple majority vote or poll.” The technique significantly enhanced “the wisdom of crowds, reducing errors by more than 20%.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the Industrial Performance Center, suggests that advanced manufacturing could create new job opportunities in the U.S. Reynolds notes that “advanced manufacturing, which combines new information technology with advanced machinery, is reinvigorating manufacturing and creating opportunities in the United States that did not seem feasible just over a decade ago.”
In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. David Singer writes that by limiting the Federal Reserve’s independence, Congress could hurt the U.S. economy. “Keeping the Fed independent and actively engaged in international coordination is the best way to maintain a stable and internationally competitive financial system in the 21st century,” he explains.
In a Huffington Post article, Prof. David Autor lists the pressing long-and short-term issues that economists will focus on in 2017. Among the long-term concerns are the effects of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which could potentially disrupt “the value of products produced using manual labor in the developing world.”
A new study by Prof. John Van Reenen finds that Britain’s exit from the European Union could cause a “negative impact on gross domestic product per capita of almost four times that of previous estimates,” reports Lucy Meakin for Bloomberg.
Prof. David Autor writes for The Huffington Post that imposing tariffs could slow the U.S.’s economic growth. A better solution, he writes, is smarter trade policy and to “aggressively enforce our current policies to protect intellectual property, enforce rule of law, and require equal treatment from our trading partners.”
An MIT study finds that online and in-store goods are sold at the same price 70 percent of the time, reports Meghan Woolhouse of The Boston Globe. Prof. Alberto Cavallo believes online and in store prices are typically the same because shoppers would likely react badly “to price differences for the same goods from the same retailer.”
Patrick Gillespie of CNN highlights the work of Professors Daron Acemoglu and David Autor in a piece about how automation is responsible for more job losses than trade. Acemoglu explains that by preventing trade now, “some of that production might come back, but the employment that comes back will not be for people, it will be for robots."
An algorithm developed by MIT researchers helps extract the correct answer from a large group of people even when the majority of people answer incorrectly, writes Erin Ross for Nature. While previous assumptions viewed the average opinion of a crowd as correct, the algorithm identifies “specialists with special knowledge, like doctors,” explains Prof. Dražen Prelec.