Good on Paper

The Myth of the Poverty Trap

Tue, 13 May 2025 10:00:00 -0000

In 1981, an estimated 44 percent of the global population lived in extreme poverty. In 2019, that number shrank to just 9 percent. We often think of poverty as a trap, but recent research shows it doesn’t have to be. The economist and co-founder of GiveDirectly, Paul Niehaus, explains how extreme poverty fell over the past 40 years and how it could be eliminated for good.

Further reading:

“How Poverty Fell,” by Vincent Armentano, Paul Niehaus, and Tom Vogl

“How Progressives Froze the American Dream,” by Yoni Appelbaum

One Illness Away: Why People Become Poor and How They Escape Poverty, by Anirudh Krishna

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The Death of Feminism

Tue, 06 May 2025 10:00:00 -0000

The ’90s are sometimes described as the beginning of the postfeminist era. But if feminism died 30 years ago, who killed it? The Atlantic staff writer Sophie Gilbert seeks to answer this question in her new book, Girl on Girl, and finds a likely suspect in the contemporaneous rise of internet pornography.

Further reading:

Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves, by Sophie Gilbert
“Don’t Call Them Trash,” by Sophie Gilbert
“Would You Give PornHub Your ID?,” by Jerusalem Demsas
“Romantic Love Is an Under-Rated Driver of Gender Equality,” by Alice Evans

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The Problem of Finding a Marriageable Man

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 10:00:00 -0000

Women now outnumber men on U.S. college campuses. There’s a common belief that the college gender gap has led to a decrease in marriage rates for college-educated women, but the economist Benny Goldman says the data just don’t support that narrative. Instead, shifts in educational attainment and marriage rates have had a much starker effect on non-college-educated women and low-earning men.

Further reading:

“Bachelors Without Bachelor’s: Gender Gaps in Education and Declining Marriage Rates,” by Benjamin Goldman, Clara Chambers, and Joseph Winkelmann

“Marriage Market Sorting in the U.S,” by Anton Cheremukhin, Paulina Restrepo-Echavarria, and Antonella Tutino

Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization, by Brad Wilcox

Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It, by Richard Reeves

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Minority Rule in America

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 10:00:00 -0000

The Framers of the U.S. Constitution designed a government that they hoped would be impervious to tyranny of the majority. What they didn’t spend much time worrying about was the reverse: a tyranny of the minority. The political scientist Steve Teles explains how very small minorities have come to dominate government and what should be done about it.

Can We Stop Kids From Watching Porn?

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 10:00:00 -0000

States are cracking down on online porn—but is it working? The researcher Zeve Sanderson explains how age-verification laws backfire, why teens outsmart them, and what that means for the future of internet regulation.

Further reading:

“Do Age-Verification Bills Change Search Behavior? A Pre-Registered Synthetic Control Multiverse,” by David Lang, Zeve Sanderson, et al.

“The Online Porn Free-for-All Is Coming to an End,” by Marc Novicoff

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Did Busing Turn Kids Into Democrats?

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 10:00:00 -0000

In the summer of 1975, white schoolchildren at some Louisville, Kentucky, public schools were faced with a choice: stay in the school system and undergo busing to integrate the schools, or leave the system entirely. A remarkable new study by the economist Ethan Kaplan shows that for students who stayed, busing had lasting effects on their political identities, making them more likely to identify as Democrats, support unions, and say that the world is not inherently fair.

Further reading:

“A Different World: Enduring Effects of School Desegregation on Ideology and Attitudes,” by Ethan Kaplan, Jorg L. Spenkuch, and Cody Tuttle

The Nature of Prejudice, by Gordon Allport

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In Search of 100-Year-Old Paper Trails

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 10:00:00 -0000

Researchers have suggested that lifestyle choices explain the remarkably high number of very old people living healthy lives in regions of the world known as “blue zones.” That research has spawned cookbooks, docuseries, and diets and turned blue zones into a household name. Today’s episode is a conversation with Dr. Saul Newman, who has upended the field by questioning the underlying data and research methods that hold up the now-controversial theory.

Further reading:

“Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud,” by Saul Newman

“The Science Behind Blue Zones: Demographers Debunk the Critics”—an open letter signed by scientists and demographers supporting the “blue zones” theory

“Sorry, No Secret to Life Is Going to Make You Live to 110,” by Saul Newman for The New York Times

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Politicians Think Voters Are Dumb. Are They Right?

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 10:00:00 -0000

What do politicians really think of their voters? A new study looking at 11 different democracies finds that politicians hold an unflattering view of their constituents, while voters view themselves as thoughtful, policy-oriented decision makers. The political scientist Jack Lucas explains why politicians think voters are dumb and why they might be wrong.

Further reading:

“Politicians’ Theories of Voting Behavior,” by Jack Lucas, et al.

“Are politicians democratic realists?,” by Jack Lucas, Lior Sheffer, and Peter John Loewen

Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government, by Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels

“‘Everything Is Terrible, but I’m Fine,’” by Derek Thompson

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Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein on Abundance

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 10:00:00 -0000

Donald Trump won back the White House last year by stoking fears of scarcity. The zero-sum thinking of the right that says there aren’t enough houses or jobs to go around laid the groundwork for the forces of illiberalism currently at play in the federal government. In their new book, Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argue that to combat the politics of scarcity, liberals at every level of government must embrace abundance.

Further reading:

Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

Why We’re Polarized, by Ezra Klein

“Do Democrats Need to Learn How to Build?,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells

“A Simple Plan to Solve All of America’s Problems,” by Derek Thompson

“Blue States Gave Trump and Vance an Opening,” by Jerusalem Demsas

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The Scientific Controversy That’s Tearing Families Apart

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 10:00:00 -0000

Shaken baby syndrome has been discredited, criticized, and even classified as “junk science” by a New Jersey judge, so why is it often being treated as settled fact in hospitals and courtrooms? The neuroscience researcher Cyrille Rossant was plunged headfirst into the controversy of shaken baby syndrome, now called “abusive head trauma,” when his child was believed to have been shaken by a nanny. After years of research, Rossant is now a leading voice among skeptics who say shaken baby syndrome isn’t backed by scientific proof.

Further reading:

Shaken Baby Syndrome: Investigating the Abusive Head Trauma Controversy, co-authored by Cyrille Rossant

“How Antiscience Creates Confusion About the Diagnosis of Abusive Head Trauma,” by John Leventhal, et al.

“No Science Supports the Diagnostic Methods for Abusive Head Trauma,” by Cyrille Rossant, et al.

“False Confessions: Causes, Consequences, and Implications for Reform,” by Saul Kassin

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Best of: Is Wokeness Dead?

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 11:00:00 -0000

As the second Trump administration dismantles federal DEI programs and removes trans Americans from the military, the crusade on “wokeness” seems to be a core focus of the president’s second term. In this encore episode, host Jerusalem Demsas speaks with the New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg about the end of wokeness and why we might miss it when it’s gone.

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The Human-Neanderthal Love-Story Mystery

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 11:00:00 -0000

If researchers could go back in time 100,000 years, they’d find at least three different types of humans walking the Earth. Today, only the dominant group, Homo sapiens, survives. The scientist Johannes Krause explains how new discoveries in paleontology and genetics help pinpoint the exact period in which human groups interbred. Understanding this timeline, he says, brings us closer to understanding what makes modern humans unique.

Further reading:

“Earliest Modern Human Genomes Constrain Timing of Neanderthal Admixture,” by Johannes Krause, et al.

“Neanderthal Ancestry Through Time: Insights From Genomes of Ancient and Present-Day Humans,” by Leonardo N. M. Iasi, et al.

“DOGE Is Failing on Its Own Terms,” by David Deming

Interview with Svante Pääbo, 2022 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine

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The Real Origins of Public Education

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 11:00:00 -0000

Why do governments educate their citizens? More than 200 years ago, Western regimes shifted the responsibility of education from the family to the state. The political scientist Agustina Paglayan argues that this transition happened not in pursuit of democratic ideals, but in the interest of social control.

Further reading:

Raised to Obey: The Rise and Spread of Mass Education, by Agustina Paglayan

“How Reconstruction Created American Public Education," by Adam Harris

“Was Weber Wrong? A Human Capital Theory of Protestant Economic History,” by Sascha O. Becker Ludger Woessmann

“Understanding Education Policy Preferences: Survey Experiments with Policymakers in 35 Developing Countries,” by Lee Crawfurd, et al.

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The Great Political Sorting of American Offices

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 11:00:00 -0000

We’re often told that there’s “no room for politics at work,” and yet the workplace is one of the most politically segregated spaces in adult life. The Harvard economics researcher Sahil Chinoy explains the self-sorting happening at every stage of professional life and the trade-offs workers are willing to make in pursuit of ideological uniformity.

Further reading:

“Political Sorting in the U.S. Labor Market: Evidence and Explanations,” by Sahil Chinoy and Martin Koenen

“The Political Polarization of Corporate America,” by Vyacheslav Fos, et al.

“Politics at Work” by Emanuele Colonnelli, et al.

“Does Communicating Measurable Diversity Goals Attract or Repel Historically Marginalized Job Applicants? Evidence From the Lab and Field” by Erika Kirgios, et al.

The study behind Sahil Chinoy’s Good on Paper answer: “Pitfalls of Demographic Forecasts of US Elections”

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Why Is One Chicago Neighborhood Twice as Deadly as Another?

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 11:00:00 -0000

Most gun deaths aren’t premeditated, so how can we stop gun violence before it happens? The University of Chicago economist Jens Ludwig makes the case for thinking differently about the source of America’s gun-violence problem.

Further reading:

Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence, by Jens Ludwig
Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir
The study behind Ludwig’s Good on Paper answer: “The Effect of Mentoring on School Attendance and Academic Outcomes: A Randomized Evaluation of the Check & Connect Program”

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Why States Took a Gamble on Sports Betting

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 11:00:00 -0000

Seven years after the Supreme Court struck down a ban on state-sanctioned sports betting, a more complete picture of the downstream effects of legalization is starting to emerge. As some states see debt delinquency and problem gambling increase, the journalist Danny Funt explains why lawmakers took a gamble on sports betting in the first place.

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Is Elon Musk Right About Big Government?

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 11:00:00 -0000

Government reform isn’t an exclusively partisan issue, so why does it seem to fall under the purview of Republicans? The researcher Jennifer Pahlka says Democrats need to “get in the game” of government reform and consider working with, instead of against, the aims of DOGE.

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The Scientist vs. the Machine

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 11:00:00 -0000

Editor’s note: After this episode aired, MIT issued a statement raising concerns about the integrity of Aidan Toner-Rodgers's working paper “Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product Innovation,” and recommending that the paper be withdrawn. The open-access research repository arXiv, where the paper was originally posted, has removed it from its archive, citing “concerns about the validity of the data and incomplete Institutional Review Board requirements.” The Atlantic reached out to Toner-Rodgers for comment but has so far not received a response.

Amid handwringing about AI’s effect on jobs, creativity, trust, and the environment, a new study shows the technology’s profound impact on scientific productivity. Aidan Toner-Rodgers, a Ph.D. candidate at MIT, recounts his research that shows the benefits and drawbacks of using AI to discover new scientific materials.

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The Political Psychology of NIMBYism

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 11:00:00 -0000

What makes someone a NIMBY? The prevailing theory suggests that people support or reject new housing in their neighborhood based on what’s best for them personally. The political scientist David Broockman provides a different explanation—one based on people’s beliefs about important symbols such as cities or tall buildings, rather than self-interest.

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RFK Jr.'s 'Seeds of Truth'

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 11:00:00 -0000

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is poised to lead the Department of Health and Human Services under President-Elect Donald Trump. He has said “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,” but Dr. Rachael Bedard, a pro-vaccine and left-leaning physician, says opponents should still seek common ground with him.

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Best of: Are Young Men Really Becoming More Sexist?

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 11:00:00 -0000

Are young men becoming radicalized? Could they be further to the right than even their fathers and grandfathers? These questions have yet to be answered definitively, but in some countries, electoral results and polls suggest that a meaningful group of young men may be finding a home in radical spaces. In this encore episode, host Jerusalem Demsas speaks to Dr. Alice Evans, a researcher at King’s College London, who has been traveling the world, trying to uncover the reason some societies are more equal than others. Her insights help explain why some young men may be turning against the tide of egalitarianism.

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Do Voters Reward Good Policy?

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 11:00:00 -0000

The key idea behind democracy is that if politicians pass good policy, people will reward them with votes. But is that actually true? The political scientist Hunter Rendleman looked at what happened when governors extended a social-welfare benefit that has lifted millions of working-class Americans out of poverty.

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How to Solve a Housing Crisis

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 11:00:00 -0000

New Zealand was in a major housing crisis. But then the Pacific nation actually took ambitious steps to address it. The researcher Eleanor West recounts the policy wins and political pitfalls of what happened—and what lessons the United States and other countries could learn.

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The Evidence on Policing and Crime

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 11:00:00 -0000

Four years ago, the murder of George Floyd—and the international protests that followed—amplified calls to defund or abolish the police. But what do we actually know about the relationship between policing and public safety?

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Is Ambivalence Killing Parenthood?

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 11:00:00 -0000

Last year, nearly half of childless adults under 50 told the Pew Research Center that they didn’t want kids. As the birth rate in the United States continues to decline, the philosopher Anastasia Berg wanted to know: Where is this ambivalence coming from?

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The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 11:00:00 -0000

Was leaving behind our nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles a mistake? If so, why did so many different groups of people make the switch to farming? The researcher Andrea Matranga spent more than a decade looking at the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic era and found that humanity’s decision to settle down was driven by climactic shifts and the need to insure against famines.

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An Election Post-Mortem With Tim Miller

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 11:00:00 -0000

What exactly happened to the Kamala Harris campaign in this year’s presidential election? Host Jerusalem Demsas and Tim Miller, a former Republican strategist and the host of The Bulwark Podcast, tick through the competing narratives about why the Democrats lost and which ones actually hold up.

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The Truth About Immigration and Wages

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 11:00:00 -0000

Do higher levels of immigration lead to lower wages? The Atlantic staff writer Rogé Karma breaks down the misconception that immigration creates an economic burden—when actually the opposite is true: Immigrants are a source of economic growth.

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Can Corporate Greed Really Explain Inflation?

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 10:00:00 -0000

Grocery store prices are up. Politicians have tried to pin it on supply-chain problems, price gouging, and corporate greed—or “greedflation.” But Ernie Tedeschi, a former chief economist of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, wonders if something else is going on. And it might just have to do with store-brand mac and cheese.

Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/podsub.

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Why Do Black People Vote for Democrats?

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 10:00:00 -0000

How is party ideology formed? Is it based on political strategy to garner the most votes? Or is it based on ideas and beliefs? The Georgetown professor Hans Noel traces the shift from the Civil War to the civil-rights movement to understand how Democrats and Republicans seemingly flipped sides during the 20th century—and what that says about the parties today.

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The Quiet Trump-Harris Trade Agreement

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 10:00:00 -0000

Are tariffs good? Or bad? And why do politicians love to talk about them so much? Scott Lincicome lays out the high costs of tariffs and who really bears the brunt.

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What Really Fueled the ‘East Asian Miracle’?

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 10:00:00 -0000

How does a nation pull its residents out of poverty and into the developed world? The researcher Oliver Kim looked into how Taiwan, and a few other East Asian countries, managed to rise from a poor nation to the ranks of the global elite in just a short amount of time.

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Would You Give Up Your Kidney for $50,000?

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 10:00:00 -0000

Would you donate a kidney? Would you do it for $50,000? Vox’s Dylan Matthews gave his to a stranger. But it made him wonder: Shouldn’t he have been paid?

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Why Does Crime Go Up When School Starts?

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 10:00:00 -0000

Crime peaks during the summer for adults. But the economist Ezra Karger found that the same can’t be said for kids: It peaks during the school year.

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How (Not) to Change Someone's Mind

Tue, 17 Sep 2024 10:00:00 -0000

When do fact-checks work? And when do they backfire and cause someone to dig in? Yamil Velez, a political scientist at Columbia University, set up an experiment using chatbots and found that people can change their mind, even on deeply held beliefs. Except under one condition: when the chatbot is rude.

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The Wandering Officer

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 10:00:00 -0000

Police rarely move between jobs and departments. But according to a paper co-authored by the University of Chicago law professor John Rappaport, officers aren’t necessarily choosing to stay in the same place—a lot of policies have made it costly for them to switch. And that lack of mobility can have all kinds of ripple effects.

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Who's Responsible for the Housing Crisis?

Tue, 03 Sep 2024 10:00:00 -0000

Americans love local government. In a December 2023 Pew Research survey, 61 percent of respondents had a favorable view of their local government while 77 percent had an unfavorable view of the federal government. But behind this veneer of goodwill is a disturbing truth: Local government is driving a housing crisis that is raising rents, lowering economic mobility and productivity, and negatively impacting wages.

Host Jerusalem Demsas talks to Atlantic deputy executive editor Yoni Appelbaum and Yale Law professor David Schleicher about how local government is fueling the housing crisis.

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How Slaves Used the Law

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 10:00:00 -0000

There’s a traditional line of thinking about the history of Black people and the law. It describes how slaves were entirely shut out of the legal system, disenfranchised and bereft of even a modicum of legal know-how or protection.

But research from the UC Berkeley professor Dylan C. Penningroth (in his book Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights) upends that narrative by tracing the overlooked history of how Black people used the law in everyday life: through rights of contract, property, marriage, and more—even under slavery and Jim Crow.

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Is Wokeness Dead?

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 10:00:00 -0000

The 2010s saw attitudes—on issues such as race, immigration, and gender—shift to the left. Liberals became more liberal. And then a "wokeness" backlash began.

The backlash, though, didn’t just come from conservatives. It came from people all over the political spectrum. Host Jerusalem Demsas talks with the New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg about the death of "wokeness"—and whether we might miss it when it’s gone.

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Running-Mate Myths with Matt Yglesias

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 10:00:00 -0000

Is there such a thing as “balancing the ticket”? How much can a vice-presidential nominee influence the election? Host Jerusalem Demsas talks with political commentator and journalist Matt Yglesias about Kamala Harris’s recent pick of Tim Walz as her running mate and whether that choice could sway undecided voters.

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What Do We Really Know About the Maternal-Mortality Crisis?

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 10:00:00 -0000

From 1999 and 2019, researchers found that the maternal-mortality rate in the U.S. more than doubled. Over the years, these findings filtered their way through academic journals and the news media to the general public.

But was there something more to this story? How had the U.S. become such a deadly place for pregnant women?

In this episode of Good on Paper, host Jerusalem Demsas talks to Saloni Dattani, a researcher at Our World in Data. Her work—built on the research of other skeptical scientists—found that the seeming rise in maternal deaths was actually the result of something very simple: a measurement change.

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Why Is Texas Beating California on Wind and Solar?

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 10:00:00 -0000

If Democrats care more about climate change than Republicans, then why is Texas the nation’s leader in renewable energy?

Host Jerusalem Demsas talks to Jesse Jenkins, an assistant professor at Princeton University, about how the Lone Star State emerged as America’s No. 1 renewable-energy producer, despite its politics—and about the broken bureaucracy that’s preventing more states from going green.

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Can Religion Make You Happier?

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 10:00:00 -0000

America is in a “loneliness epidemic.” But is turning to religion the answer?

Host Jerusalem Demsas talks to Arthur Brooks, a professor at the Harvard Business School who teaches classes on leadership and happiness. He’s also a contributing writer for The Atlantic where he has written that happiness comes, in part, through faith.

Brooks argues that the “nones”—people who identify with no religion—are unhappier (at least, on average) than people who believe in a greater power.

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A Remarkable School-Choice Experiment

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 10:00:00 -0000

School choice is usually about providing parents an option outside the traditional public school system. Between 2010 and 2021, public charter school enrollment in the U.S. more than doubled.

But LAUSD did something different. It recognized the growing appetite for choice and wondered whether the normal public school system could help satisfy it. It set up a limited school choice program in 2012, the kind of experiment ripe for an economics paper, and thankfully economist Christopher Campos took notice. Host Jerusalem Demsas talks to Campos about his paper, revealing that when public high schools were forced to compete for enrollment, achievement gaps narrowed, and college enrollment took off.

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Are We Talking About Therapy Too Much?

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 10:00:00 -0000

Does everyone really need therapy?

The destigmatization of mental health problems—and the normalization that many people do struggle with severe mental illnesses—has been one of the great cultural transformations of the 21st century. But has this shift carried unintended consequences?

After all, what if therapy is less like exercise—something everyone should do to be healthy—and more like prescription medication—something you should only really use if you need it? Host Jerusalem Demsas talks to Dr. Lucy Foulkes, a researcher at the University of Oxford who has become increasingly concerned that raising awareness is not unambiguously good.

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The Coming Labor Shortage Is Not Good News

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 10:00:00 -0000

Does an aging workforce mean greater worker power?

One of the takeaways from pro-worker advocates during the pandemic financial crisis was that employees saw fantastic gain. As demand for workers skyrocketed, employees got to be choosy. What bosses called “The Great Resignation” was actually workers having the power to demand better wages and working conditions, as well as the willingness to quit jobs that wouldn’t offer those things.

But economist Adam Ozimek warns that people may be taking the wrong lesson about tight labor markets, and that the coming labor shortage isn’t cause for celebration—but concern.

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Are Young Men Becoming More Sexist?

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 10:00:00 -0000

Are young men becoming radicalized? Could they be further to the right than even their fathers and grandfathers? These are big questions that have yet to be answered definitively, but in some countries, electoral results and polls suggest that a meaningful contingent of young men are frustrated and may be finding a home in radical spaces.

Host Jerusalem Demsas talks to Dr. Alice Evans, a researcher at Stanford University who has been traveling the world, diving into qualitative and quantitative research to uncover why some societies are more equal than others. Her insights help tease out why some young men may be turning against the tide of egalitarianism.

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Who Really Protests, and Why?

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 10:00:00 -0000

In 2020, two major protest movements defined our political landscape: the racial justice protests after the murder of George Floyd and the anti-lockdown protests pushing against COVID-19 restrictions. At the time, these movements were seen by many as near polar opposites and were often defined by their extremes.

But did the two actually have much in common?

Host Jerusalem Demsas talks to Nick Papageorge, an economist at Johns Hopkins University, who co-authored a paper called, “Who Protests, What Do They Protest, and Why?” His research calls into question our assumptions about the participants of mass protest. Are they really dominated by fringe elements? How can we tell? And what does it mean to misunderstand the people that make up social movements?

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The Truth About Immigration and Public Opinion

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 10:00:00 -0000

In recent years, there's been an overarching narrative that immigration is seen as an obvious political loser for the left and a clear political winner for the right. But does that theory make sense?

Host Jerusalem Demsas talks to John Burn-Murdoch, columnist and chief data reporter for the Financial Times, about the factors that influence public opinion on immigration—and why it may not be as simple as political commentators would have you believe.

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The Great Remote-Work Experiment

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 10:00:00 -0000

Four years after the Great Remote-Work Experiment began, the public debate has boiled down to: Bosses hate it and workers love it. But is that all there is to it? Who really benefits from remote work—and who doesn’t? And why is it that women with more job experience suffer the most?

Host Jerusalem Demsas talks to Natalia Emanuel, a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who co-authored a paper looking at the effects of remote work. Do people understand the tradeoffs they’re making when they choose to work from home? What’s the impact on the team if even one person is remote? And does remote work benefit older workers at the expense of younger ones?

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Introducing: Good on Paper

Tue, 14 May 2024 11:00:00 -0000

Have you ever heard a commonly held belief or a fast-developing worldview and asked: Is that idea right? Or just good on paper? Each week, host Jerusalem Demsas and a guest take a closer look at the facts and research that challenge the popular narratives of the day, to better understand why we believe what we believe. Good on Paper launches Tuesday, June 4.

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