Just Economics

The US has strong political polarization, which affects policy outcomes. Race is an important dividing line for partisanship. White people are more likely to be Republicans, and Republicans are less likely to support racial integration policies, such as busing or affirmative action. But what if these racial integration policies themselves changed racial attitudes and political partisanship by allowing White people to get to know more Black people? This is the topic of today’s discussion: the impact of busing on political affiliation. Ioana welcomes Eric Chyn to the podcast to discuss this issue.

Eric Chyn is an assistant professor of economics at Dartmouth College, and you can follow him on Twitter at @EricChyn. In this episode, Ioana and Eric discuss Eric's co-authored paper with Stephen Billings and Kareem Haggag on the impact of school busing on political affiliation. You can find the paper here: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aeri.20200336

Ioana and Kat discuss recent evidence on the effects of child tax benefits on poverty and work. Ioana interviews Mark Stabile, an economics professor at INSEAD in France, on his recent working paper, “The Effects of Child Tax Benefits on Poverty and Labor Supply: Evidence from the Canada Child Benefit and Universal Child Care Benefit.” Ioana and Mark discuss the results of his study as well as how the Canadian child tax benefit can help us understand the debate in the United States around the expansion of the child tax credit. Afterwards, Kat and Ioana discuss the implications for both policymakers and donors who want to help.

You can find Mark’s paper here: https://www.nber.org/papers/w28556

You can learn more about the nonprofits Kat mentions:

• Center for High Impact Philanthropy’s analysis of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) which provides jobs and other opportunities for some those returning from incarceration : https://www.impact.upenn.edu/center-for-employment-opportunities-2/
• Center for High Impact Philanthropy’s analysis Year Up which prepares young adults with GEDs and/or high school diplomas the connections and skills needed to successfully enter the workforce : https://www.impact.upenn.edu/opportunity-youth-toolkit/opportunities-for-donors/year-up/

Related Center for High Impact Philanthropy guidance:

• Center for High Impact Philanthropy’s 2022 High Impact Giving Guide, focused on ensuring a more just recovery from COVID: https://impact.upenn.edu/giving-guide
• Early School Success: How to recover learning loss and advance gains needed for our youngest children to recover from the disruptions caused by COVID: https://www.impact.upenn.edu/early-school-success/

Ioana and Kat talk about COVID-related job loss and the effects of unemployment insurance policies. Ioana interviews Eliza Forsythe, an economics professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, about the labor market during COVID-19 and how the pandemic and the United States government’s response has impacted inequality in the U.S.

You can find Eliza’s papers here: http://publish.illinois.edu/elizaforsythe/files/2021/05/Cortes_Forsythe_Inequality_May2021.pdf, http://publish.illinois.edu/elizaforsythe/files/2021/08/Cortes_Forsythe_Covid-demo_revision_8_1_2021.pdf, and follow Eliza Forsythe on Twitter @ElizaForsythe.

You can learn more about the nonprofits Kat mentions:

• Center for High Impact Philanthropy’s analysis of Benefits Data Trust, which connects eligible people to benefits : https://www.impact.upenn.edu/benefits-data-trust/
• Center for High Impact Philanthropy’s analysis of Found in Translation, which improves job prospects for low-income women while expanding medical access for members of their communities : https://www.impact.upenn.edu/found-in-translation/

Related Center for High Impact Philanthropy guidance:

• Center for High Impact Philanthropy’s 2022 High Impact Giving Guide, focused on ensuring a more just recovery from COVID: https://impact.upenn.edu/giving-guide

Larry Katz is an economics professor at Harvard University, and an expert on all things about the labor market. Larry was the chief economist of the US Department of Labor in 1993-1994. He is an editor at the Quarterly Journal of Economics, one of the top academic journals in the field of economics. You can follow him on Twitter @lkatz42. Larry has some recent work (https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/lkatz/files/krhs_sectoral_jole_final.pdf) about the ways in which job training can help less educated workers get better jobs, and we will be discussing the results today. This article is co-authored with Jonathan Roth, Richard Hendra, and Kelsey Schaberg, and is forthcoming in the Journal of Labor Economics, in a special issue in honor of Alan Krueger.

This episode was produced by Penn's School of Social Policy & Practice MSSP students: Ding Wu, Jiayin Yuan, Xuli Fan, Yi Yang.

Due to the pandemic, governments around the world are reflecting on where policy should be going next, and climate change is a key item on the agenda. However, climate policies like the carbon tax increase the price of energy, which can particularly hurt low income people. Economist Adrien Fabre joins Ioana on to discuss his publication with Thomas Douenne investigating the support for the carbon tax among French people shortly after the Yellow Vests protests against gas tax increases.

Adrien Fabre is currently a post-doctoral fellow at ETH Zurich, and you can follow him on Twitter at @adrien_fabre. You can read his paper in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20200092