Category Archives: Blog posts

Who Gets Health Care Priority? Resource Allocation in a Middle Income Country

Posted on June 18, 2013 by

Adriane Gelpi, a doctoral candidate in Health Policy at Harvard and a fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, describes the intricate ethics and politics of health care resource allocation in Chile. This was originally posted on the … Continue reading →

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Should media representation of women be a feminist priority?

Posted on June 16, 2013 by

This week the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3 for short) was held in Los Angeles. This is an event the makers of computer games hold ever year to show off their wares; and every year sparks the same debate about the … Continue reading →

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Thatcherism, Spirituality and Public Policy

Posted on June 6, 2013 by

In a guest post that takes a more reflective look than our typical, more empirically-minded writing, Owen Davis mulls over a relatively neglected side of Thatcher’s legacy. News of Margaret Thatcher’s death was received with a mixture of grief, relief … Continue reading →

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The plight of poorly-educated US women: Trickle down isn’t happening

Posted on June 4, 2013 by

I have a post on The Incidental Economist documenting the decades-long and continuing decline in life expectancy among poorly-educated white women in the US. The figure below (from J. Olshansky and colleagues) shows the sharp decline in life expectancy among … Continue reading →

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Conservative Reformers and Equality of Opportunity

Posted on May 29, 2013 by

Avik Roy argues in the National Review Online that For many of today’s conservative reformers [e.g., Roy, Reihan Salam, or Ross Douthat], equality of opportunity — especially for the poor — is the highest moral and political priority. As AEI’s … Continue reading →

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On tax, we should stop expecting companies to act like people

Posted on May 27, 2013 by

In response to the Google and Amazon tax scandals, there’s been a lot of talk from UK politicians about how tax is a “moral issue”. This is a conclusion with which it’s difficult to disagree. These companies are going to … Continue reading →

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The new consensus on IQ

Posted on May 22, 2013 by

The relationships among intelligence, race, human development, and genetics are among the most important topics for students of inequality. These topics are also sites for recurring ideological battles, most recently involving Jason Richwine’s research on Hispanic immigration to the US. … Continue reading →

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Predicting smoking risk from your genes

Posted on May 16, 2013 by

Your genes can increase your risk of developing a smoking habit. In a great new study, Avshalom Caspi and his colleagues show that you can use individual genomic information to predict (to some degree) who will or will not smoke. … Continue reading →

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Learning About Inequality Increases Concern, But Not Necessarily Support for Redistribution

Posted on May 15, 2013 by

A puzzle: income inequality between the top 1% and the rest has surged in the last few years, yet support for redistribution among the general public has actually declined (see figure below). Do people not care about inequality, or do … Continue reading →

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Reinhart & Rogoff – the debt cliff that wasn’t

Posted on May 12, 2013 by

Timely as ever, I thought I’d finally get around to writing something about this Reinhart & Rogoff business. If you’re reading this blog, there’s a good chance you’ll be familiar with the story – a while ago, two high profile … Continue reading →

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