Archive
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Connecting the Disconnected: How Technology Can Accelerate Human Progress
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It is impossible to understate the impact that information and communication technology (ICT) has had on the social and political environment of the 21st century. Scholars have argued that improvements in ICT lead to significant economic growth—in part, by development assistance programs aimed at connecting people to the internet. This…
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Social Media May Provoke Violent Conflicts, But Can It Prevent Them Too?
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When a gang member on the south side of Chicago posted a photo of himself throwing down a gang sign in enemy territory on his social media account, the backlash was immediate and severe. The response was not limited to the comments section alone; it took only an hour for…
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Innovation and Climate Change: A Framework for Effective Environmental Policy
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Climate change and environmental degradation may be the greatest existential threats the world will face for generations to come. After entering in to office in January 2017, the Trump administration signaled that it would pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement, dealing a blow to the spirit of global cooperation…
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Can Geo-Simulations Provide A Roadmap to Better Disaster Response?
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The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season was one of the priciest on record, mirroring a global trend of natural disasters becoming more expensive. Understanding the impacts of these natural disasters has become increasingly important. Researchers often model these impacts by creating relationships between indicators such as hurricane wind speed, predicted costs…
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Digital Health: The Next Frontier in Mental Health Care
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Uber, Airbnb, Seamless, Waze—Twenty years ago these concepts were a distant impossibility. Smart phone technology has given programmers, computer scientists and entrepreneurs tools to revolutionize traditional industries like hospitality, transportation and supermarkets. However, the emergence of new technology need not be limited to satisfying basic consumer needs. The ubiquity of…
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Not Just Their Problem: Roger Thurow Explains Why We Have All Been Missing Opportunities in African Agriculture
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Roger Thurow has served as a senior fellow on the global food and agriculture team at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs since January 2010. Before joining the Council, he reported for the Wall Street Journal where he wrote a series of stories on famine in Africa that was a…
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Which Income Group Benefits from Commuting Subsidies? Lessons from Germany
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Most countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) offer one form or another of tax breaks for commuting expenses. In countries like Germany and Denmark, the cost of commuting to and from one’s place of work is exempted from taxable income. In the United States, parking expenses are exempt…
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Teachers’ Unions Improve Student Achievement: Insights from California Charter Schools
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Over the past several decades, public sector unionization rates have held fairly steady, even as private sector unionization rates have plummeted. Among economists and social scientists, a debate persists as to whether public sector unions serve the public interest. Proponents argue that these unions increase the efficiency of the public…
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How Our Perceptions of Victims’ Humanity Increases Some Violence, But Not All
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Dehumanization is the process through which we come to believe that a person cannot think, feel, and behave intentionally, nor experience right and wrong. A substantial body of literature from the social sciences posits that dehumanization may be the psychological rationale motivating acts of mass violence, such as the Holocaust…