Archive
-
High-Hanging Fruit: How Governments Can Respond to High Food Prices
•
On January 31, the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) released its latest food price index report, showing that food prices have trended upward since July 2020. The primary agricultural commodities — soybeans, wheat, and other cereals, corn, rice, and meat — are trading at the highest levels in a decade. The…
-
Centering Equity in Urban COVID-19 Recovery
•
Even before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, socioeconomic inequality plagued cities across the globe. The pandemic itself has both deepened those existing wounds and ripped open new ones. In the United States, neighborhoods predominantly inhabited by people of color have experienced the highest rates of both infections and deaths,…
-
Evading the Taxman: The Effects of Perceived Influence
•
Death may be unavoidable, but taxes? Not so much. An estimated $430 billion per year evades capture from tax collecting regimes worldwide. Developing countries are disproportionately harmed by tax evasion, with individual country losses equal to about half of their public health budgets. Generally speaking, tax evasion is any deliberate behavior to avoid…
-
Is a Skill Signaling Gap Worsening Economic Inequality?
•
Since the 1970s, the United States has experienced growing inequality as the wealthy increased their total income share while the middle class shrunk. One of the most important explanations of this phenomenon is rising college premiums coupled with stagnant returns to high school education. With rapid technological change, the job…
-
The Student Debt Crisis
•
The time to pass universal student loan forgiveness is now. To date, more than 45 million current and former students are burdened with student debt, with collective debt exceeding $1.6 trillion. The current global pandemic has only exacerbated this crisis, and Black and brown students bear the brunt of this…
-
Reducing Cost of Behavioral Health Services is Not Enough
•
Approximately one in twenty adults in the US suffer from a serious mental illness (SMI) such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depressive disorder. Yet barriers to accessing behavioral health services, including mental health care and substance use treatment, remain high. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health revealed…
-
Solving the Issue of Rising College Drop-Out Rates
•
Over the past few decades, research has suggested that there exists a gap in access to higher education for low-income populations in the United States. The attention this problem has received has pushed many colleges to develop new programs to improve access. Recent data does indeed show an improvement: college…
-
Do Elections Make You Sick?
•
The current U.S. political system is deeply polarized, defined by partisan animus and infighting. A contentious election cycle culminated in an armed insurrection of the U.S. Capitol and a violent attack on U.S. democratic institutions. The political stakes of these events seem straightforward, but what can be said about the…
-
The History of Community Mental Health Care
•
More than a third of incarcerated individuals in the United States today have a diagnosed mental illness. In the 1960s, this population constituted fewer than 5% of all inmates. How did having a mental health condition become criminalized? A well-meaning policy intervention called the Community Mental Health Act (CMHA) of…
-
End Sexual Abuse in ICE Facilities
•
The afternoon before she was supposed to be deported to Mexico, “Jane Doe” was moved to a dark cell in an unfamiliar part of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Houston she had been detained at for three months. Two other women were placed in the…
-
Trading Places: The Future of the World Trade Organization
•
In August 2020, the World Trade Organization (WTO) began the election process of its new Director General. The process started after the resignation of the Brazilian Roberto Azevedo, one year before the expected end of his term, and ended in February 2021 with the election of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, from…