Normalizing Reparations: U.S. Precedent, Norms, and Models for Compensating Harms and Implications for Reparations to Black Americans

Paying reparations to Black Americans has long been contentiously debated. This article addresses an unexamined pillar of this debate: the United States has a long-standing social norm that if an individual or community has suffered a harm, it is considered right for the federal government to provide some measure of what we term “reparatory compensation.” In discussing this norm and its implications for Black American reparations, we first describe the scale, categories, and interlocking and compounding effects of discriminatory harms by introducing a taxonomy of illustrative racial harms from slavery to the present. We then reveal how the social norm, precedent, and federal programs operate to provide victims with reparatory compensation, reviewing federal programs that offer compensation, such as environmental disasters, market failures, and vaccine injuries. We conclude that the government already has the norm, precedent, expertise, and resources to provide reparations to Black Americans

Downskilling: Changes in Employer Skill Requirements Over the Business Cycle

Using a novel database of 82.5 million online job postings, we show that employer skill requirements fell as the labor market improved from 2010 to 2014. We find that a 1 percentage point reduction in the local unemployment rate is associated with a roughly 0.27 percentage point reduction in the fraction of jobs requiring at least a bachelor's degree and a roughly 0.23 percentage point reduction in the fraction requiring five or more years of experience. This pattern is established using multiple measures of labor availability, is bolstered by similar trends along heretofore unmeasured dimensions of skill, and even occurs within firm-job title pairs. We further confirm the causal effect of labor market tightening on skill requirements using a natural experiment based on the fracking boom in the United States as an exogenous shock to the local labor supply in tradable, non-fracking industries. These industries are not plausibly affected by local demand shocks or natural gas extraction technology, but still show fewer skill requirements in response to tighter labor markets. Our results imply this labor market-induced downskilling reversed much of the cyclical increase in education and experience requirements that occurred during the Great Recession

Engaged Scholarship: Perspectives from Outside the University

Engaged scholarship brings universities and external partners together to create knowledge for mutual benefit. Together, faculty, students, and external partners define problems, undertake analysis, and share findings. A defining characteristic of engaged scholarship is reciprocity—participants share benefits as well as costs. This paper explores engaged scholarship as a growing part of the HKS curriculum. More students are calling for engaged scholarship opportunities. More faculty are offering engaged scholarship courses. The school is developing resources to help faculty assume new, more externally focused roles. To date, however, relatively little attention has been given to how the school’s growing interest in engaged scholarship is impacting external partners: mayors, department managers, city council members, and school district superintendents. What does engaged scholarship require of them in terms of time and resources? From their perspective, what are the costs and what are the benefits? How might HKS better take their interests into account

Perang Tiga Triliun Dolar Bencana Ekonomi di Balik Invasi Amerika ke Irak (ALMUD)

267 hl