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(10/25/12 2:00am)
For the last four years in a row, U.S. News and World Report has ranked Dartmouth as number one in the country for "Best Undergraduate Teaching." The College must certainly be doing something right. But even the very best can still improve and, given the changes likely to buffet higher education over the coming decades, may be forced to improve.
(09/25/12 2:00am)
Over the past week, remarks that Mitt Romney made last May at a fundraiser in which he appeared to write off 47 percent of the electorate were met with a mixture of scorn and bewilderment. For many Democrats, these comments nicely dovetailed with previous insinuations that Romney and Paul Ryan are social Darwinists. More broadly, the incident seemed to confirm an oft-repeated narrative on the American left conservatives simply do not care about the poor.
(09/11/12 2:00am)
Last month, the national unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent. Given that the unemployment rate peaked at 10 percent in October 2009, the economy must have improved significantly over the last three years, right?
(07/31/12 2:00am)
Last Wednesday, the Tuck School of Business hosted a panel discussion titled "Obama and Coolidge: What the 44th President Might Learn From the 30th." The discussion included interesting talks by both economics professor Douglas Irwin and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. However, the most important point arguably came from Tuck Associate Dean Matthew Slaughter. Slaughter argued that we would all benefit if our politicians had a greater sense of humility, and I think politicians would be wise to heed Slaughter's advice.
(07/06/12 2:00am)
In its decision in National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court ruled that the Commerce Clause does not give the federal government the power to force individuals to purchase health insurance. In doing so, the Court very clearly indicated that the scope of the Commerce Clause is limited. Many people were taken aback by this decision. After all, the Court vastly expanded the scope of the Commerce Clause during the Great Depression. Didn't the Depression prove, once and for all, that the federal government needs more power to regulate the economy than a pre-1930s reading of the Commerce Clause would allow?
(07/03/12 2:00am)
About a week ago, I overheard a rather distressing conversation between several students. One asked, "Do you think that Obamacare is unconstitutional?" to which another replied, "I don't know, but I like it, so the Court should uphold it."
(05/24/12 2:00am)
In our day and age, empirical evidence from scientific study is held in high regard. Perhaps as a result, supposedly "scientific" data are often used in political debates to show how one political position is "better" than another. One psychology study purported to show that as people become drunker, they become more politically conservative. Another claimed to show that conservatives better understand liberals' opinions than vice versa. However, when one uses empirical studies to justify these kinds of claims, one must make implicit assumptions that can often be very wrong. Especially in the social sciences, there are several problems that can arise when empirical papers are reported in popular media and then used as fodder in political debates.
(05/17/12 2:00am)
On Tuesday afternoon, former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave a lecture on the global economy in which he argued that the world is becoming ever more interconnected and that many problems will need to be solved through greater international cooperation ("Brown discusses global economy," May 16). While Brown's argument is certainly true with regards to some pressing issues, further centralization of political power isn't a wise idea in general.
(04/26/12 2:00am)
It is no secret that, three years since the official end of the recession, many of the world's economies are still in terrible shape. Here in the United States, unemployment has been above 8 percent for three years. In Europe, public discontent with the state of the economy has caused political shockwaves, most recently in the Netherlands and France. Nonetheless, one of the key problems facing governments today a problem known as "dynamic inconsistency" has largely gone unacknowledged outside of the confines of the academic economics community.
(04/10/12 2:00am)
Many people seem to assume that placing intelligent people in positions of power and then granting these individuals broad discretionary powers to do as they see fit is the best way to go about solving the world's many problems. However, this idea is often an illusion. In many cases, simple policy rules would produce far better outcomes than affording wise individuals substantial influence.
(03/28/12 2:00am)
Over the last three years, many on the left have argued that the Republican Party has gone crazy. At first, I didn't think much of this argument. However, I recently read a bizarre article opposing fiscal stimulus, and, in light of the whole stimulus debate, I could not help but contemplate the possibility that the Republican Party has indeed gone off the rails.
(03/26/12 2:00am)
President Kim,Congratulations on your nomination to the presidency of the World Bank. I think that President Barack Obama made an excellent choice in his decision to nominate you to this most important position.
(03/07/12 4:00am)
During his State of the Union address last month, President Barack Obama proposed a "Buffett Rule," which would impose a minimum average tax rate of 30 percent on all income above $1 million per year. However, this rule was conspicuously absent from the president's budget proposal last week. This was for a good reason: Regardless of the ethical theories to which you personally subscribe, the Buffett Rule is a terrible idea.
(03/01/12 4:00am)
One cannot argue with a straight face that America's primary and secondary education system is just. Students from wealthier socioeconomic backgrounds receive better educations on average. School vouchers offer the best solution to this problem.
(02/14/12 4:00am)
Last Wednesday, Peter Orszag, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and of the Office of Management and Budget, gave a lecture that touched on the increasing political polarization in the United States ("Orszag discusses political economy," Feb. 9). He argued that this trend is reflective of increased polarization among Americans as a whole rather than just among American politicians. Political polarization has increased because many people only follow news sources that tend to confirm their pre-existing ideological beliefs, and people are increasingly able to avoid news sources that might present an opposing opinion. It would be a mistake if we as Dartmouth students failed to seriously consider Orszag's argument.
(02/01/12 4:00am)
During his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama stated that "Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary." This statement echoed an op-ed that Buffett wrote in The New York Times last August. In this op-ed, Buffett claimed that he only paid 17.4 percent of his income in federal taxes and, using data from the Internal Revenue Service, that the 400 richest Americans only paid an average of 21.5 percent of their incomes in federal taxes. These claims are often used to support the contention that the federal tax code has been rigged in favor of the rich.
(01/25/12 4:00am)
It is no secret that good teachers can make a world of difference in their students' lives. Most people presumably would like to make sure that disadvantaged students have access to these good teachers. As a result, figuring out how to sort the good teachers from the bad has become an important public policy question.
(01/09/12 4:00am)
The United States is currently in the midst of a jobs crisis more severe than any since the Great Depression. Many policy decisions made in Washington over the last three years have exacerbated this crisis by increasing overall economic uncertainty. It is imperative that the next president understand the nature of the problem and be willing to rectify the situation.
(01/04/12 4:00am)
Over the last three or four decades, income inequality has increased in most developed countries. In the United States, many people have blamed this trend on the political influence of "the rich" and have argued that reversing the increase in inequality should be a public policy priority. However, this apportionment of blame is wrong, and the resulting policy prescriptions ignore more important problems.
(11/21/11 4:00am)
Earlier this month, about 70 Harvard University freshmen walked out of their introductory economics course. In an open letter to their professor, the students claimed to be protesting "bias" in the class and expressed solidarity with the "global Occupy movement." Given the profound economic ignorance shown by the content of their letter, it is tempting to simply dismiss this walk-out as little more than a stunt by a few arrogant freshmen. But I think this event is but one facet of a larger problem the politicized way in which public discussion often treats economic theories and evidence. This means of discussing economics is wrong, and needs to be changed.