Research Analysis
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Drug Cartels, Politics, and Violence in Mexico
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The strategic decision by Mexican drug cartels to assassinate local government officials and politicians in the past 15 years has been surprising, to say the least. Since the 1990s cartels understood that their success depended on remaining out of the spotlight, a position from which they could co-opt government authorities…
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Restricting Immigration Leads US Employers to Move Jobs Elsewhere
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Immigration is a perennial source of debate in the United States. Debates tend to focus on low-skilled immigrants – their legal status, employability, country of origin, and even potential threat to national security. In recent years, however, high-skilled legal immigration has increasingly come under scrutiny. Anti-immigration sentiment can stem from…
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Insights on Biden Administration’s Climate Policy: Interview with Professor Amir Jina
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Amir Jina is an Assistant Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, UChicago. His research focuses on the role of the environment and environmental change in shaping of how societies develop. He has conducted fieldwork related to climate change adaptation with communities in India, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Uganda. Professor…
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The UN’s “Sustainable Development Goals” is a Misnomer
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How do countries pursue socioeconomic development in a sustainable and equitable way? This question has received considerable attention, more so with the COVID-19 pandemic bringing about discussion of a green (economic) recovery. The United Nations formulated 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 to provide a framework for global development, ranging…
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Universal Cash Transfers in India: The Case for an Inclusive Growth Dividend
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The idea of Universal Basic Income (UBI) has gained traction over the past decade. While the idea of a basic income has existed since the American and French Revolutions, it has never been implemented on a country-wide level. Myriad questions remain on its execution: should it replace most or all…
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Housing Discrimination Informs Racial Gaps in Pollution
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A large body of evidence shows that Black and Hispanic Americans are disproportionally exposed to harmful pollutants. People of color are more likely to live near hazardous waste landfills, more likely to reside near contaminated waterways, and more likely to breathe air containing pollutants such as ozone. Scholars have named this phenomenon the…
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The Policy Road to Climate Goals
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The global transport sector constitutes a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions — nearly 72% of this derived from road transport. Since many countries remain heavily reliant on fossil fuel-powered vehicles for road transportation despite advances in technology, road transportation must play an outsize role to achieve the Paris Accord goal…
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The Perks of Parks Through the Lens of Chennai
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Recent social distancing guidelines have undoubtedly deepened local appreciation for public spaces as places of respite from otherwise hectic lives. For many, green public spaces (namely parks) have provided a low-risk avenue to connect with nature, meet others in a distanced capacity, and engage in other welfare-enhancing activities. The structures…
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Bikeshares Are Not an Alternative to Public Transit
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Public bikeshare systems (PBS) have become increasingly popular in cities, prompting studies on their relationship with different forms of transit, including cars, rideshare, walking, and public transit such as buses and rail. Many of these studies have found that PBS reduces the use of all other modes of transit (Bullock,…
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Evading the Taxman: The Effects of Perceived Influence
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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…
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Is a Skill Signaling Gap Worsening Economic Inequality?
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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…