Liberty
Securing the American Dream
Ian Rowe highlights proof that the American Dream remains within reach. The American dream is still alive and can be achieved in just one generation, even among the most economically…
Raj Chetty
American economist
Research Brief
Budget, Taxation & Economy
Public policies have prevented equal opportunity for all Americans
“There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up,” Booker T. Washington said. We have had a reminder in recent weeks that…
Budget, Taxation & Economy
Statewide lockdowns aren’t just outrageously authoritarian; they’re also ineffectual, and they waste valuable time and energy that should be used to fight COVID-19.
In “Statewide lockdowns unnecessarily divide, divert us from task at hand,” I suggested that “even in the absence of statewide lockdown orders, voluntary social distancing would have had more or…
Liberty
Charlotte opportunity
A New York Times story on “black families leaving Chicago” led me to another story on the topic a year ago. The earlier story described Kristin Ware’s decision to move…
Budget, Taxation & Economy
Tax cuts, innovation, and economic growth
Paul Romer won the Nobel prize in economics for showing how innovation creates economic growth. A new working paper from Raj Chetty and his colleagues presents a model of how…
Budget, Taxation & Economy
Why do African Americans have low rates of income mobility?
There is a lot to unpack in the new National Bureau of Economic Research article, “Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: An Intergenerational Perspective.” In their hefty working…
Liberty
What Ails the White Working Class?
At City Journal, Aaron Renn has published a review of J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. It’s interesting throughout, but I found the following excerpt particularly insightful: For the Left, the unpleasant truth is what…
Education
Why does North Carolina need to end teacher tenure?
Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute offers a good answer in a National Review Online column. Desperate times demand desperate measures. And so I propose an education-reform plan that…
Liberty
Easton probes the income inequality issue
Nina Easton devotes her latest Fortune magazine column to facts surrounding the political pandering over income inequality. Look across three decades of increased global competition and human-replacing technology, and there’s…
Liberty
What if the American economy has hit a point of permanent stagnation?
Writing for the latest Commentary magazine (the article is not yet posted online), James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute explores the claim that “maybe the good times really are…
Liberty
How Are Teacher Quality and Student Performance Related?
Conventional wisdom says the most important factor in education is money. I’ve long disagreed with that notion. I think two factors are key: the involvement of the parent and the…
Education
Researchers: Good teachers matter a lot
Ok, the title of my blog post does a disservice to the sophisticated study of teacher quality produced by researchers from Harvard and Columbia universities. A December 2011 National Bureau…