Co-funded with the JPB Foundation
Research in experimental social psychology has found that the perception or experience of racial discrimination in one institutional setting is associated with the perception of discrimination in other settings. For example, individuals who have had negative encounters with the police report higher levels of medical mistrust and are less likely to seek medical care. This may contribute to racial health disparities, along with a disproportionately white health care workforce and its associated power differentials.
Over recent decades, real wages have fallen among non-college educated workers, due in part to the declining power of unions, the erosion of the federal minimum wage, and technology-induced changes in labor processes. As a result, ways to identify and scale pathways that promote upward mobility among low-wage workers are needed. Sectoral employment programs, which provide targeted training in industries with high local demand and good quality jobs, are an alternative to educational programs for workers unable to pursue two- or four-year degrees.
In academia, journal publications are the primary determinant of tenure and promotions. However, these are both a reflection of research productivity, and a function of personal networks and exposure to high-quality feedback. Economists Danila Serra and Elira Kuka hypothesize that since the economics discipline is predominantly male and white dominated, less access to quality feedback and weaker networks reduce women’s and underrepresented minorities’ chances of getting tenure.
Today, two-thirds of Native Americans do not live on tribal lands. Research suggests that migrating away from low-income areas can mitigate the deleterious effects of growing up in a disadvantaged community and improve later-life outcomes for children and young adults. While experiments like the Moving to Opportunity program have been evaluated, economists have largely overlooked the federal program that subsidized the relocation of reservation residents to urban areas.
Recent research suggests that legal actions since the 1970s to reduce school spending disparities by race have had profound consequences for affected students. However, modern research methods have not yet been applied to study the later-life impacts of the reductions in racial gaps in school resources in the South before school desegregation began. Economists Elizabeth Cascio and Ethan Lewis will assemble and harmonize county-level panel data on school resources by race for 11 southern states, building on existing data from 1910 to 1940.
Questions about remote work arrangements have accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While about 20 percent of employees whose jobs could be done from home did so prior to the pandemic, in 2020, about 71 percent did, and 54 percent wished to continue working from home after the pandemic ends. At the same time, many employers expect workers to return to offices, often citing workplace dynamics and patterns of collaboration that they believe may have been impeded by remote work.
Companies have long experimented with automation to replace workers. For example, McDonald’s has been testing robots as cooks and servers, Amazon uses robots to haul products in its warehouses, and banks are adopting artificial intelligence (AI) to perform tasks like decision-making and anomaly detection. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the public health risks and the implementation of safety measures have led to large-scale layoffs, suggesting that automation and AI might further reduce reliance on workers.