Large stipends drew effective educators into Dallas's lowest-performing schools.Source: nrubocDespite extensive efforts, education policy in the United States has enjoyed limited success in raising achievement at the lowest-performing schools. Attracting and retaining highly effective teachers poses a particular challenge, but districts have very rarel...
Ingrid Haegele discusses the costs of talent hoarding.Source: XArtProductionMost firms rely on managers to spot talented workers and to encourage them to move into bigger roles within the company. But managers are judged on how their own teams perform, giving them an incentive to hold on to their best people.In a paper in the American Economic Review, econ...
Evidence from Israel’s 1999 preschool law shows that disadvantaged communities can benefit from universal preschool education.Source: CherylCaseyGovernments across the developed world have embraced large-scale public preschool as a tool for reducing inequality and promoting intergenerational mobility. And while small, intensive programs, such as the Perry...
Evidence from a US government lottery shows that restricting foreign low-skill workers shrinks businesses without creating jobs for Americans.Source: Ragesoss, CC BY-SA 3.0Researchers broadly agree that high-skill immigrants complement native labor. But for low-skill work, the evidence has been less clear, with estimates swinging widely depending on the as...
Greater political autonomy yielded lasting economic gains in Brazilian communities.Source: luiz rochaBetween 1988 and 1996, Brazil added more than 1,300 new municipalities, a 34 percent increase in the smallest governmental units with decision-making authority. The 1988 constitution had handed states the authority to set their own rules for creating munici...
Lukasz Rachel and Catherine Wolfram discuss the G7 price cap on Russian oil and why it defied textbook predictions.Source: ROMAN DZIUBALOIn response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the G7 imposed a price cap of $60 per barrel on all Russian oil carried by tankers owned, insured, or serviced by Western companies. Many analysts expected the policy to ...
Danish data reveal how viruses brought home by older siblings influence lifetime income.Source: famveldmanRespiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading cause of infant hospitalization in the United States, with most children getting the infection by the age of two. For typical preschoolers, the virus produces little more than cold-like symptoms, but in ...
Extreme temperatures in El Salvador destroy farm jobs and push workers abroad.Source: zenpixDuring the Great Recession, migration from Mexico to the United States began to fall, a pattern economists attributed to weaker job prospects and tightening immigration enforcement. Migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, however, did not follow suit. E...
A natural experiment in Louisiana shows private plans can cut drug costs without reducing observed quality.Source: diego cervoWhen governments transfer public health programs to private firms, the promise is to lower costs while providing the same quality of healthcare. Whether privatization actually delivers on that promise has been hard to measure becaus...
A rise in work from home explains most of the postpandemic gain in full-time employment among people with physical disabilities.Source: YacobchukEmployment among people with disabilities has remained well below that of the broader population, with an average disability employment gap of 27 percentage points across OECD countries. In the United States, this...
