Podcast appearances and mentions of sandy darity

Renowned Professors Dr. Sandy Darity and Dr. Cornel West discuss Reparations 2024 in this special live recorded presentation. #ados #racialwealthgap --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/timblackpause/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/timblackpause/support

Reparations for Black Americans is not a new idea—before the U.S. Civil War had ended, there was a proposal to provide freed Black people with “40 acres and a mule.” That did not materialize, and in the ensuing century and a half, the Black descendants of formerly enslaved people have faced systemic injustices, discrimination, and violence. In this episode, Professor William “Sandy” Darity, Jr. and Kirsten Mullen explain what a meaningful reparations program for Black Americans would entail, how eligibility should be determined, and why the federal government is both the “culpable and capable party.” Sandy Darity is the Samuel Dubois Cook Distinguished Professor of Public Policy, African and African-American Studies, and Economics at Duke University. He is also an IRP Affiliate. Professor Darity's research focuses broadly on stratification; economics on inequality by race, class, and ethnicity; and the economics of reparations. Kirsten Mullen is a writer, folklorist, museum consultant, and lecturer whose work focuses on race, art, history, and politics. Together they are the authors of "From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century," and are also two of the editors of "The Black Reparations Project, A Handbook for Racial Justice."

 As the parent of a 12-year-old child, I know that raising a child is one of the most profound and rewarding experiences of a person's life. It is also shockingly expensive. The high cost of child rearing is particularly difficult for families with limited resources. To help us think through this issue, it is my great pleasure to welcome a colleague here at Duke: Dr. Christina Gibson-Davis, Professor of Public Policy. Christina studies economic inequality, and particularly how it affects families with children. Interview Summary So, let's do a bit of level setting. We often hear words like poverty and wellbeing. For our conversation today, what is poverty in the US and what do we mean by wellbeing? In the US we have a definition of poverty that relies on a certain threshold. Every year the US government publishes a set of thresholds for families that say - if you are below this threshold, then you are poor. If you're above this threshold, then you're not poor. The thresholds are actually based on data from 1963, when the federal government decided it really needed a way to count the number of poor people in this country. Prior to 1963, we really didn't have any way to do that. They looked at how much money people spent on food, and from that number, they derived these poverty thresholds. In 2022, the poverty threshold for a family of four, just to give your listeners some idea, was about $22,000. This means that if you earned $21,999, you were considered poor. But if you earned $22,001, you weren't considered poor. That's what I mean about the threshold and about falling either above or below that threshold in order to determine whether or not you're poor. Thank you, Christina, that's really helpful. It is interesting that the measure of poverty really is centering on food, or at least traditionally has. We'll get back to that in a moment. I want to go back to the question of wellbeing. Could you tell our listeners what you're talking about when you talk about wellbeing? When we talk about wellbeing, we mean things like how healthy kids are, or how they get along with peers, or how they do in school. Basically, it's the way we measure how kids are functioning and whether they're functioning to the best of their ability. It sounds like it's a broad notion that represents all the ways a child is a child, how they move in this world. That's exactly right. It's going to cover a whole bunch of different areas. Everything from health and education to social relationships, to behavior, to delinquency, to how far they get in school. All of that goes into our definition of wellbeing. Great. Thank you for that. I want to now focus a little bit more on children themselves. What does childhood poverty look like in the US? We can have a technical definition of poverty, which is what I alluded to before, but really, that technical definition I don't think paints a very illustrative portrait of what it looks like to be poor in the US. To be poor in the US as a kid means you're growing up in an environment with very low levels of economic resources. You're probably growing up in a household where you're not sure if those economic resources are going to be enough for your family to maintain their home or pay their bills or get enough food. It's a very sort of unstable situation for kids because they may be worried that their parents just don't have enough money. It also sort of affects the kids' outlooks. We know that poor kids tend to have sort of lower aspirations or hopes for the future. Not that they're not hopeful, but they sort of also know that some of the things that they see may be depicted on TV that are open to other kids may not be an option for them; because they simply don't see a path between where they are and how they're going to get there. That is actually pretty sobering. I'd like for you to explain something about households with children, and I noticed that a lot of our conversation is going to not focus on an individual child but about children in household context. So, how does poverty look different for households with children than households without children? Is there a difference? Yes, there's a difference in poverty rates. One of the things that distinguishes poverty in the United States relative to poverty in other Western or developed countries is that we have very, very high rates of child poverty. And one of the biggest risk factors, in fact, for being poor in the United States is being a kid. Kids tend to have higher poverty rates than other groups. Why is that? Well, obviously kids aren't out making money. They're relying on their parents for their financial wellbeing. But it really has to do with the public policy choices that we've made. Your listeners have probably heard of Social Security and Medicaid, and those are two huge programs that make huge differences in the lives of say, people over the age of 65. We really don't have those kinds of corollaries for kids who are poor. And so, when you look at our policy priorities over the past, say half century, they've really been oriented more towards elderly people rather than kids. That's just a policy choice that we have made. Thank you for sharing that. I know in some of the work that you've done, you've also looked at these issues through an equity lens. Can you tell us a little bit more about the wealth inequalities of households with children. And how does that work shape how we should look at child wellbeing? We've been talking up until this point primarily about income, which for most people is the money that they earn through their job. We think about income as the money that flows into your house. There's also this really important concept, which is called wealth. Wealth is a household's assets minus its debts. So, for most households, their primary asset is their house. And then they might have debts because they owe money on their house, or they have medical loans or education loans or things like that. So, wealth in the US is distributed far more unequally than income. In particular, the racial gaps in wealth are staggering. So, in the US, for every dollar of wealth that is held by a white family with children, a black family has less than 1 cent. Again, that's a $1 to less than 1 cent ratio. When you have those kinds of inequities, it's really hard for some families to make a difference in the lives of their kids. We know that wealth really helps, for example, for kids to go to college or to make a successful transition to young adulthood. And when we have these kinds of race-based inequities, it really hampers some of these kids from realizing their full potential. I know we have a number of colleagues like Sandy Darity who work on this racial wealth gap. So, this is a critical topic that has influence on how we need to think about these issues. And that's going to connect a topic that I have worked on, and that's a great interest of our center. It's the topic of food insecurity. Christina, can you help connect childhood poverty to food insecurity? Food insecurity, as many of your listeners may know, is the ability to have enough food for a healthy, active lifestyle. Not surprisingly, being poor puts you at increased risk of being food insecure. It's probably the predominant risk factor for being food insecure. The reason we care about that is because we know that food insecurity has all kinds of detrimental consequences for children. So, we were talking earlier about wellbeing covering a wide range of outcomes. Food insecurity really diminishes kids' wellbeing in many of those areas that we were talking about. Kids who are food insecure are less healthy, they do less well in school, they may have more behavior problems. So, food insecurity is really something that can undermine the life chances of children. I'm interested in now turning our focus to this issue of policy. We're at a policy school and I would like for you to talk a bit about what our current policies are for addressing food insecurity. For children, there are a number of food programs in the US. I would say the three most relevant ones for children are SNAP or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Benefits, and WIC, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women and Children. And then there is a free and reduced lunch program. Those programs together really try to address food insufficiency among children. The evidence suggests that they work pretty well. None of them by themselves are going to reduce all food insecurity among kids, but they definitely lessen the levels of food insecurity that kids experience.  There was an article in the "New York Times" about a year ago, the Fall of 2022, and it talked about readjustments to the measure of poverty, and they followed the family out of West Virginia. One of the things they did was they looked at the income that this family received, and it showed that 25% of the total, if you will, resources that came into this family were food-based programs, WIC, SNAP, and School Lunch Program. So, it's an important part of how families with limited resources are able to meet some of their needs. I'm appreciative of you sharing that. I think it's absolutely vital, particularly when you think about families that may be living in places with really high rents. There's been a lot of talk lately about how the cost of housing has gone up, and really these sources of food assistance that they get from the government is just absolutely critical to helping them meet the basic needs of their families. So absolutely, these food assistance programs are just a linchpin of how these families survive. It's interesting now that we're in this moment of debating the Farm Bill, which is the federal program that supports SNAP, how it's important for us to keep in mind that beneficiary of the SNAP program are children and children whose wellbeing can be affected by a program like this. I'm grateful for this conversation. Now, how effective are these policies at reducing food insecurity and addressing child wellbeing? These programs work fairly well. They're not, I would say, large enough or convey enough resources to eradicate levels of food insecurity. I think it's also important for your listeners to know that there is no such thing as a federal food policy. So, we let states set the limits, for example, as to how much they're going to spend on SNAP. This leads to large variations in like the SNAP limits. So, for example, if you live in New York, you get about $100 more in SNAP benefits than if you live in Oklahoma. So, what does this mean? It means that these programs are going to be more effective in some states than in others, simply because of the amount of resources that people may get based on where they live. As we wrap up, I wonder if you have any other points of consideration about policy and how policies that we currently have can actually help us address child wellbeing more effectively. One of the other things that distinguishes the US food policy landscape, if you will, is we also have a relatively large private sector. So, people may be familiar with food banks or other places where they distribute food. And, you know, that's sort of the best and the worst that America has to offer, right? The best is that charitable organizations recognize the importance of providing food for people. And these organizations are very effective at providing meals and groceries, and it's a really important source for these families. But I say it's also the worst because there's a giant need for these private sector places. And because the provision of these private sector food goods can vary depending on where you live or how much money the nonprofit organization has, it can be a very variable source of support for food. So, in some ways, our food policy landscape is kind of a crapshoot, if you will. And that I think that makes it hard for us really to get a handle on childhood food insecurity. Bio Christina M. Gibson-Davis is a professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, with a secondary appointment in sociology. Her research interests center around social and economic differences in family formation patterns. Her current research focuses on the how divergent patterns of family formation affect economic inequality.  

We're joined this month by William A.( “Sandy”) Darity to discuss reparations for Black Americans. Sandy Darity is Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. A founding theorist of stratification economics and foremost scholar of the racial wealth gap in the United Stats, Darity is perhaps best known for his committed public advocacy for acknowledging, redressing, and resolving histories of racist violence against enslaved black people and their descendents through a federal program of reparations for black Americans. In April 2020–just weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic and two months before the global uprisings that followed the murder of George Floyd–Darity and co-author Kirsten Mullen published the book From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century. We speak with Professor Darity about this book–including its conception, reception, and circulation over the last few years. We also ask Darity about related projects like his proposals for “Baby Bonds” and a Federal Job Guarantee. We conclude, finally, by suggesting that the U.S. Treasury mint a $12 trillion-dollar platinum coin featuring prominent figures from the black freedom struggle for the purpose of financing reparations and educating the public about how money works. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructureMusic by Nahneen Kula: www.nahneenkula.com

On this show, we have an informative and revealing discussion with Sandy Darity and Kirsten Mullen regarding their most recent book, The Black Reparations Project: A Handbook for Racial Justice.

William A. (“Sandy”) Darity Jr. - Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University - joins Tavis to unpack the implications of Rep. Bush's legislation, racial inequality within the American tax system, and examine whether the staggering sum of $14 trillion would suffice to bridge the enduring economic disparities between Black and White Americans.

I first met Peter Arcidiacano, professor of economics at Duke University, while I was a PhD student at the University of Georgia and I have followed his work since from a distance. I originally followed Peters work because he'd written several articles about sex from a two-sided matching perspective. I was struck by the fact that we both saw thinking about sexual relationships in terms of a matching problem. Two sided matching perspectives focus on the assignment mechanisms that bring people together, and when it comes to sexual relationships, the relative supply of possible partners and competition for those partners will in equilibrium result in pairings, some of which may become the most life sustaining and defining partnerships of those peoples lives. Peter's work was gratifying to read, and I have often looked up to him for his successful merging of theory and econometrics to study topics I cared about. The economic way of thinking is not about topics, nor is it is not about data, even though economists tend to have particular topics they study intensely and use data usually to do so. The economic way of thinking does though typically involve careful study of allocation mechanisms, such as prices and markets, that bring the productive capacity of communities into existence. These things are important as they animate humans to work together, produce output that manages the production itself, and increasingly towards the end of history, left surplus for humans to enjoy. Who ends up in what activities doing what types of specialized work ultimately shapes that which is made, how much and how it is distributed. The allocations end up not only shaping our lives, but our children's lives. Starting conditions can cast a long shadow lasting centuries even causing certain groups to creep ahead as more and more of the surplus mounts and accrues to them, while others watch as a shrinking part of the growing pie flows to them.In the United States, in the 21st century, one of the key institutions in all of this assignment of love and commerce has been the university. And within the university system, there are gradations of institutional pedigree and at the top of the pack sits elite institutions whose students seem practically destined to shape and receive the surplus. Given the path dependence in wealth, and how it has interacted with race, it is therefore no wonder that policymakers and economists have for decades sought to refine the rules by which schools can select high school applicants for admission. In many ways, our country's fight over the use of race in selecting students into college is the old debates about capitalism and the self adjusting market system writ large. So it's in this broader context about work, schools, matching and allocation mechanisms that I think of Peter and his scholarship. When I review the range of topics on Peters vita, I see the signature marks of the modern 21st century labor economist. Someone interested in markets and how they work to connect people into productive cooperation. Someone interested in institutions, someone concerned about inequality and discrimination, someone versed both in economic theory and econometrics, someone at home with a bewildering array of numbers in a spreadsheet. To me, it is natural that Peter has pivoted so fluidly between topics like sex, work, discrimination and higher education because in my mind these are all interconnected topics concerning the assignment mechanisms we use in America to organize society and maintain our collective standard of living.I invited Peter on the Mixtape with Scott as part of an ongoing series I call “economists and public policy”. The series focuses on how economics and economists think about and attempt to shape public policy. It includes people with a variety of perspectives, and even some who are critics of economics itself. Previous guests on the podcast in the “economists and public policy” series have been Sandy Darity, Elizabeth Popp Berman, Anna Stansbury, Mark Anderson, Alan Manning, Larry Katz, Jeremy West and Jonathan Meer. Peter has not only produced academic articles in some of economics' most impactful outlets — he has recently served as expert witness in two major discrimination cases, one of which put him on the opposite side of the stand as David Card, winner of 2021 Nobel Prize in economics. You can read about the cases here. They involve the broader topic of race and affirmative action at universities. The cases more specifically involve whether Harvard and UNC Chapel Hill admissions criteria show signs of discrimination. One of the things about Peter's involvement as expert witness that I want to highlight, though, is that his expert testimony was, at its core, an example of the role that econometrics can play in the shaping of public policy. It is more and more the case that economics' role in the shaping of public policy in the 21st century will involve not merely economic theory, but also statistical analysis of complex datasets too, and I think it is worth pausing and noting that the economist shapes public policy oftentimes these days as much through interpreting data as her counterpart did using pure economic theory. I hope you find this discussion with Peter thought provoking and informative about both his work on these cases, but also about the role of economics and econometrics in forming public policy. But I also hope that the interview will give you a deeper insight into Peter and who he is. Scott's Substack as well as The Mixtape with Scott are supported by user subscriptions. Please share this episode to people within and outside economics that you think might be interested. I love doing these interviews and using the substack to do deeper dives into econometrics and the lives of economists and if you find this work valuable, please consider subscribing and supporting it. Scott's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.TranscriptScott Cunningham:In this week's episode of Mixtape: the Podcast, I had the pleasure of talking with a professor at Duke University, named Peter Arcidiacono. I can never pronounce it correctly, no matter how many times I try. I first met Peter in graduate school. He was, probably then, an assistant professor at Duke, where he has spent his entire career. I was a PhD student at the University of Georgia. And he had a research paper on a topic that I was also working on, involving marriage markets. He's been an incredibly prolific producer in the area of labor economics and education, as well as affirmative action. And he uses tools in econometrics, that I largely never invested in, structural econometrics and discrete choice modeling. So when I read his work, I usually do it, both, because I'm interested in the paper and the paper topic, but also because I'm hoping that this will be a chance for me to open my mind a little bit more, and pick up on some of that econometric modeling, that I lack.Peter is also an expert witness in a high profile case, right now, involving affirmative action and racial discrimination at Harvard University, and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, both of which have been combined into a single case. As I understand it, it's going for the Supreme court soon. In this interview, we walk through a lot of big and small issues around society's preferences around poverty, inequality, as well as the role that higher education is playing in both. My name is Scott Cunningham, and this is Mixtape: the Podcast.Scott Cunningham:Okay. This is great. I don't know if you remember. So this is an interview with professor of economics at Duke University, Peter Arcidiacono. And we're going to be talking about a range of topics. But just to give the reader and the listener a little bit of background, Peter, could you tell me a little bit about yourself, and what your involvement is with a current case, going before the Supreme court, involving University of North Carolina and Harvard University?Peter Arcidiacono:Certainly. And thanks for having me on. I've been at Duke now, for over 20 years. This was my first job out of grad school, and stayed here ever since. And a lot of my work has been on higher education, both with regard to choice of college major, as well as affirmative action.And one of the really dissatisfying things about working on affirmative action, is that universities hide their data. So you can't really get a good sense of how the programs are working, because you typically don't have the data. And I think that that really matters, because to me, so much of the discussion about affirmative action, is in the binary. Either we have it, or we don't have it. But what it means to have it, is something, as economists, we would think about, that's something we would be optimizing over. And so, there's really a large space between race as a tiebreaker in admissions, and what somebody like Abraham Kennedy would advocate for, which would be more of a quota system.And so, thinking about where you stand on that, to me, I had this opportunity to work on these two cases, two lawsuits. One brought against Harvard, and one against UNC, on the role of race in these admissions processes. And for me, it was an opportunity to look behind the veil, and see how these programs actually operated.My intent was always to, a feeling as though, if I'm going to be an expert on affirmative action, I should know how these processes actually work. So my intent was always to use this for the purposes of research, as well. And we've written a number of papers out of the Harvard case. Four have been accepted now, and we just released a fifth one on racial preferences of both schools. And we'll see what happens with that. So those lawsuits, I testified in trial, at both those cases. My counterpart in the Harvard case was David Card, who recently won the Nobel Prize. I was wondering how I would respond to that. And actually, my response, I got to go up against a Nobel Prize winner.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:So those experiences were somewhat traumatizing. But both experts, David Card and Kevin Hoxby, are pillars in the field, and people who have been very helpful to me, and who I have a great deal of respect for.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:So these cases have now, in both those cases, the side I was on lost at the first round. In the Harvard case, they also lost at the appellate round.Peter Arcidiacono:In UNC, it didn't actually go through the appellate round, because-Scott Cunningham:Oh, so-Peter Arcidiacono:... supreme court merged the cases.Scott Cunningham:... Both the Harvard University case and the Chapel Hill case, were already decided, but not at the Supreme Court level.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right.Scott Cunningham:Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:So the decision was appealed. It's now before the Supreme Court.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:I think the Supreme Court scheduled here, arguments in October, and then, we'll see when they release a decision.Scott Cunningham:Okay. So, and these are both cases involving affirmative action and racial discrimination amongst particular groups of people? Is that groups of students, is that right?Peter Arcidiacono:That's right. Though, in the UNC case, there's actually no claim of Asian American discrimination. So that actually, you only see that at Harvard. You don't see that at UNC. That doesn't mean, I think that Asian discrimination is unique to Harvard.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:I think it has to do with the fact of there not being that many Asian Americans in North Carolina.Scott Cunningham:North Carolina, right.Peter Arcidiacono:It's always been a bigger issue at the very top schools.Scott Cunningham:And you were called in, as an expert witness, for the plaintiff in both of those cases.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right.Scott Cunningham:Right. So David Card is the expert witness for Harvard, representing Harvard, against an accusation of, well, what exactly is the accusation against both of these institutions, and who brought these accusations against them?Peter Arcidiacono:So the group is called Students for Fair Admissions. And they basically got groups of students to, as their plaintiffs. Though, it's not about those particular students, in terms of remedies. And in Harvard, there's three claims. One, whether or not they're discriminating against Asian American applicants, relative to white applicants.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:Two, whether the size of the preferences given for underrepresented groups, is constitutional.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And three, whether there were race-neutral alternatives that they could have used. So the Supreme Court has said, "If there is a race-neutral alternative, you should use that."Scott Cunningham:Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:I'm not really involved at the race-neutral part. We had a different expert for that aspect.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:Though, in both cases, Card and Hoxby actually did the race-neutral part, as well.Scott Cunningham:What exactly does the constitution say a admissions committee can use, when drawing up a student cohort?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, so I'm not sure what the constitution has to say on it, but I can say what the history of this of the court challenges have been.Scott Cunningham:Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:So I think, it's Title VI of Civil Rights Act said, "You're not supposed to use race-"Scott Cunningham:Race.Peter Arcidiacono:"... in these types of things." And there are other categories too.Scott Cunningham:Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:But race is the focus of this one. Now, the reason they had that, was because of the history of ill treatment of African Americans.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And this is obviously going in the other direction-Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:... with regard to African Americans receiving preferences in the admissions process.Scott Cunningham:Mm. Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So, but then, the history was that the original decision, the Bakke case, said, "Look, you can't use race in admissions, because of reparations. You can only use it because of the benefits of diversity." So the state can have an interest in diversity. And that was a compromised position to get that swing justice, to sign onto it.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:Since then, there have been a number of cases. I think the ones that are most relevant right now, are the ones that came out of the Michigan cases.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And there was one at the undergraduate level, which they found that you could not use race as part of an explicit point system.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So you can get points for having a good SAT score, points for being a particular race, you add them up together, then you could rank the-Scott Cunningham:I see.Peter Arcidiacono:... applicant.Scott Cunningham:So there were schools that were doing a point system based on individual characteristics, like race. And that was, at that moment, it was unclear whether that would be legal. It was, I guess, or was it something that schools were, potentially, in a legal, bad situation, when they were using it? Or was it just not known?Peter Arcidiacono:I don't think it was clear. And that's where the court ruled. You cannot use it in that way.Scott Cunningham:Got it. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:At the same time, there was a case against Harvard's Law School. And on that one, they said that you could use race, holistically. As an economist, I can express anything as a formula. And then, the question is, whether you see all parts of the formula or not.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:So it gets a little tricky. And I think that, from my perspective, I would've rather had the ruling go in the exact opposite way.[inaudible 00:11:59] on if we're going to find in favor of one or the other.I would prefer a point system to a holistic one, because then, everything's clear.Scott Cunningham:Clear. Yeah. It seemed really precise-Peter Arcidiacono:[inaudible 00:12:09], to hide their data.Scott Cunningham:... Yeah. It seems like lots of times with the law, the imprecision of this language, as though it's a solution to the problem, is really challenging for designing policy.Peter Arcidiacono:I totally agree. Yeah.Scott Cunningham:So, okay. I want to set up the reader a little bit, oh, the listener, to know who you are before we dive into this, because I'm loving this thread, but I want people to know who you are. So before we get more into the case, can you tell me where you grew up, and why you got into economics? Your first, what was the touchstone that brought you into this field?Peter Arcidiacono:So I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. My first set of years were actually in Ellensburg, Washington, which is a town of 13,000. My dad was a math education professor.Scott Cunningham:Oh, okay. What university was he a professor at?Peter Arcidiacono:Central Washington University.Scott Cunningham:Okay. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:And then-Scott Cunningham:Hey, but what'd you say it was? What was it again?Peter Arcidiacono:... It was math education.Scott Cunningham:Math education.Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah. So he was teaching teachers how to teach math.Scott Cunningham:Oh. So you've always been, it's in the family to be interested in education?Peter Arcidiacono:Yes. And-Scott Cunningham:And even this math education part. That's another way of describing an economist that studies education.Peter Arcidiacono:... Right.Scott Cunningham:Math education.Peter Arcidiacono:Well, my parents actually met in linear algebra class, so.Scott Cunningham:Oh, that's romantic.Peter Arcidiacono:And I've got two brothers, and they were both math majors.Scott Cunningham:Oh, wow. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:I was the only non-math major.Scott Cunningham:Okay. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:But I came into college, and started out in chemistry. I think, Econ PhD programs are filled with former, hard science majors.Scott Cunningham:No joke. Yeah, yeah. They hit organic chemistry, and then, they changed their major.Peter Arcidiacono:Right. And I just couldn't stand the lab. It was too social. And one of my good friends, a guy who ended up being the best man at my wedding, was a couple years ahead of me, told me I should take an economics class.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:And it was amazing. I think that just the way of thinking, just worked naturally for me.Scott Cunningham:Well, so when you say way of thinking, the way of thinking that was, can you tell me what your 19 year old self would've been jarred by? What are the specific things, that economic way of thinking, that he was noticing?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, it just fit with a lot of how I operated. So I view economics as a great model of fallen man.Scott Cunningham:Uh-huh.Peter Arcidiacono:Fundamentally, I was the guy who always looked for the loopholes. So responding really well to incentives. I had a keen eye for how I could game the system.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And so, I think a lot about what economics is doing, is the dismal science, right? The reigns on the parade of well-intentioned policies.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:How are people going to get around the policies? Well, that's where I lived, was figuring out how I could game the system.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. Right. So you were, this idea of that rational choice paradigm, is that what you mean?Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah.Scott Cunningham:And that-Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah.Scott Cunningham:... that people would just simply, if they have goals, those goals don't just go away with a policy. They might just continue to try to achieve those goals at lowest cost, even then.Peter Arcidiacono:Exactly.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And the other studying thing, which I think, really affected why I ended up doing the research that I did, was, for me, the chemistry classes were just way harder-Scott Cunningham:Uh-huh.Peter Arcidiacono:... than economics classes.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And I'm not trying to say that any classes are easy.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:But there is definitely large differences-Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:... in every university, and what the expectations are-Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:... across fields.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And that distorts people's behavior.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So I view it, that most colleges are subsidizing students, to go into low paying fields. And how do they subsidize them to do that? They offer higher grades-Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:... and lower workloads, smaller class sizes. All those things work, so that lots of people come in wanting to major in well-paying fields, and switch in, and switch out.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And they do so because of the incentives the universities provide.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. So you got interested in economics, and that's like, you're describing some sort of price theory, microeconomics. But you've also have made a career out of being such a strong econometrician in this area of structural econometrics and discrete choice modeling. How did you get interested in those topics? What was your first reaction to econometrics?Peter Arcidiacono:I had a very strange econometrics background. So my first year econometrics, was taught by Chuck Manski.Scott Cunningham:Oh.Peter Arcidiacono:The whole year. And so, it was lots of bounds.Scott Cunningham:Uh-huh.Peter Arcidiacono:And then, my second year, it was all John Rust.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So a complete swing, right? So you go from the non-parametrics, what can you identify under the smallest number of assumptions?Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:To what can you identify, if you want an answer something really big.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:You got to make a lot of assumptions to make that.Scott Cunningham:Oh, boy. That's an interesting journey, right there.Peter Arcidiacono:So I actually never had the mostly harmless econometric-Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... at all.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And the econometrics has always been-Scott Cunningham:This was Wisconsin?Peter Arcidiacono:... That's right.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right.Scott Cunningham:What year was this?Peter Arcidiacono:In the econometrics, the advances were always more, because I needed to do something to estimate my models.Scott Cunningham:Right. This was mid nineties? This would've been the mid nineties, or late nineties?Peter Arcidiacono:I'd like to say late nineties. Yeah-Scott Cunningham:Late nineties? Okay. Yeah-Peter Arcidiacono:... [inaudible 00:19:10].Scott Cunningham:... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, keep going. Sorry.Peter Arcidiacono:So I was thinking about my own experience, in terms of choosing a college major, and thinking about, Well, people are learning over time. They start out those STEM classes, and figured out, wow, this is a little bit harder than I expected.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And then, moved through.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:So I had a mind, I actually had the idea for my job market paper, my first year. And had this idea of a forward looking model, of how people choose their college major.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And so, then, I go into John Rust's office, because he's my second year econometrics professor, and was describing this problem to him, that people are making decisions today, giving expectations about the future.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And he says, "Yeah, I think I can help you with that." And I was like, "No, you don't understand. This is a really hard problem." And of course, John Rust had written the [inaudible 00:20:13] paper about how to estimate these types of models-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... And he was fantastic with me. [inaudible 00:20:20]. He didn't say idiot. You could at least look at what I do, before you come to my office. He was fantastic with me.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And actually, the funny story about that too, is he's actually the only reason I'm an economics professor, because-Scott Cunningham:Oh, yeah?Peter Arcidiacono:... I only got into one grad school. Got rejected from much worse places in Wisconsin. It was the only place that accepted me.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:And the joke was that that was the year John rusted everybody in. So there were 53 of us to [inaudible 00:20:57].Scott Cunningham:That's awesome.Peter Arcidiacono:17 got PhDs.Scott Cunningham:Wow.Peter Arcidiacono:And if you look at another guy, one of my friends, I just actually found out we were actually at a conference in honor of John Rust, this past weekend.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And it turns out, that was the only place that admitted him, as well. And he's been incredibly successful too.Scott Cunningham:The John Rust fixed effect is filled with stories.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right.Scott Cunningham:That's really cool. That's really cool. I'm curious, thinking about what your, I want get to the Harvard and the Chapel Hill. But before we move on, you could imagine, had you gone to Princeton, or MIT, and worked with, or Berkeley, and worked with these, the treatment effects guys, like Imbens, and Angrist, and Card, and Kruger, and O'Reilly, and all these people. It's not just that your knowledge of econometrics would've been slightly different. Even the kinds of questions, that you would be asking, might be different. So I'm curious, what do you think your training and structural, under Manski and Rust, how has that shaped, not just the way you do your work, but even the types of questions that you ask, that you imagine, you might not have asked? For instance, just even thinking, modeling choice-Peter Arcidiacono:[Inaudible 00:22:40].Scott Cunningham:I'm sorry. I don't know. Did I lose you?Peter Arcidiacono:You froze on me.Scott Cunningham:Ah, I froze? Okay-Peter Arcidiacono:You're still frozen.Scott Cunningham:... I'm still frozen? Okay. There. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:Now, you're back. So you're asking about what types of questions.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. What kinds of questions do you think you ended up being really interested in, and working on? Not just the model that you wrote down, but even the actual topics. Because I'm curious, I'm wondering if listeners could really frame their understanding of this structural, versus this causal inference, tradition. Not just in terms of the technical pieces, but like this is practically how, the work a person ends up, that you think you ended up doing, versus if you had got Angrist as an advisor.Peter Arcidiacono:Oh, I think it has shaped me quite a bit. I am certain that if I'd gone to a place like Chicago, I would've probably ended up working with Steve Levitt. I am naturally attracted to some of those topics, that are more of a freakaconomics-type nature. And if you look at it, we actually had competing papers-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... on discrimination in the Weakest Link game show.Scott Cunningham:Uh-huh. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And I've written a couple of sports papers. So I have that in me, to think about those types of things. If I'm-Scott Cunningham:Topics, right? Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... Yeah.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:I think that the Manski Rust combination did have a big effect on me, and, in the types of questions that I asked. Which is what structural brings to the table, is thinking about mechanisms.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So when you think about the effect of affirmative action on outcomes, understanding why the effect is what it is, matters.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:How it affects application behaviors. How is affects what majors issues. What would be those counterfactuals? And for that, I think you need some of these structural approaches.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:Now, one of the things about those structural approaches, to say, typically involve making some pretty big assumptions.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And I think that that's where the Manski influences had on me, because I also have papers that use subjective expectations data. And I think that that is actually an incredibly promising area of work.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:It's quite clear that people don't know as much as they should know, when they make important decisions. Certainly, higher education being a prime example of that.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:COVID really makes that clear, you know? How can it be that the people who are unvaccinated, are least likely to wear a mask? Clearly, they're operating under very different beliefs about-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... what's going to happen.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. Right. Right. Okay. So let's move into this Harvard Chapel Hill project. So setting it up, tell me, what is the first event that happens, that makes this a case against Harvard? Not counting alleged discrimination, but the actual historical event, that leads to a need for an expert witness.Peter Arcidiacono:Well, I think the need for the expert witness came about, because Harvard had to release their data, in the context of the trial.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So in the context of the lawsuit, the claim was there were some smoking guns that suggested the possibility, for example, of Asian American discriminationScott Cunningham:That would not fit this holistic criteria, that you mentioned earlier?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, so, it's an interesting question, right? So you can't have with the holistic criteria, you can take race into account, but the question is whether you could take race into account, in a way that penalizes a group, relative to white applicants?Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:So it might be one thing to say, "We're going to give a bump for African Americans, relative to whites."Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:Maybe another thing to say, "We're going to give a bump for whites, relative to Asian Americans."Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Okay. So they've had a lawsuit brought against Harvard. Harvard's had a lawsuit filed against them. What year is-Peter Arcidiacono:[inaudible 00:27:32]. Sorry, say it again.Scott Cunningham:What year would that have been?Peter Arcidiacono:Oh, man. I think it was back in 2015, or something like that.Scott Cunningham:2015. Did anybody see that coming? Or was this odd, this is just inevitable?Peter Arcidiacono:I think that, they were advertising for plaintiffs, students who had been rejected. So certainly, there was an intent to file such a lawsuit, for sure. And then, they had to weigh what universities to file it against. And they chose Harvard, because of the patterns on what were going on with Asian Americans. And I think UNC had more to do with the, there was some evidence in the record, from past cases, that race-neutral alternatives would work there.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm. Okay. So you get involved. How do you get selected as the expert witness? And what's your job, exactly, in all this?Peter Arcidiacono:So I think I get selected, I've written a couple of survey articles on affirmative action. And I view it that there are lots of nuances. So the fact that I would actually say there are nuances, as opposed to it being always good-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... made it attractive for them, I think.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And back in 2011, there was actually a protest here, at Duke, over one of my studies.Scott Cunningham:Oh, really?Peter Arcidiacono:Yes. So that one, we were actually using Duke data, and confronting a tough fact, which is lots of black students at Duke came in, wanted to major in STEM and economics, but switched out. In exploring why they were switching out at such a higher rate, relative to white applicants.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:So for men, it was very extreme.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:8% of white men switched out of STEM and economics-Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:... to a non-STEM, non-economics major. Over 50% of black males switched out. And you look at that, you think, that's a problem.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And once you account for the differences in academic background, prior to Duke, all those racial gaps go away. And I think what, the path to the protest to serve in the long run. So I won't get into all details of that, but I think that they didn't believe the fact at first.Scott Cunningham:And what was the fact exactly, that the racial discrimination, the racial bias, the racial differences vanished, once you conditioned on what, exactly?Peter Arcidiacono:I conditioned on academic background.Scott Cunningham:Oh, I see. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:Course and such like that. But I think even the original effect, they were surprised by, which was that the switch out rates were so different.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And at that time-Scott Cunningham:But why is that a protest against you? What does that have to do with you, if you're just documenting facts?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, I think that the negative press headline said, potentially racist study says black students are taking the easy way out. And so-Scott Cunningham:Potentially racist study.Peter Arcidiacono:Potentially racist study. Yes.Scott Cunningham:This study was racist.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right. And I think that the issue, it actually makes a lot more sense now, than it did to me at the time. And economists thought this was crazy at the time. It's actually interesting, because I got attacked from people all over the country. It didn't make a major news flash, but within certain circles, it did. And actually, one of the people who wrote about it at the time, was Abraham Kendi. This was before he changed his name. He's not the, he wasn't famous in the same way that he is now. But the fact that I wasn't pointing the finger at the departments, I was pointing the finger, I think it was interpreted as victim blaming. It's their fault that they're switching out because they're not prepared. That's never how I would want to frame it. I would want, to me, this is, the issue is that you're not prepared-Scott Cunningham:You think you framed it?Peter Arcidiacono:No, I don't think so. But the way economists talk about things is different.Scott Cunningham:I know. I think that something, I think we're, a generous view is that we can't, we don't know what we sound like or something. I get into this a lot with my work on sex work, and I've, I work really hard to try to be very factual. And it, the use of words can be so triggering to a group of people. And I can never, I still can't quite articulate what exactly it is, in hindsight, that I, what word I used that was so wrong. But you feel like you would write that paper differently now?Peter Arcidiacono:Knowing that non economists would read it? Yes.Scott Cunningham:What would you do differently?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, I think, you have to be much more, when I say, it counts for the differences in switching behavior.Scott Cunningham:Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:The way other people hear that, is I'm able to explain why every single person switches their major, and has nothing to do with other factors. That's the reductionist claim against economists, as opposed to, on average, this is occurring.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So I did a radio interview at the time, and one of the people on the show was a blogger from Racialicious, who was a regular on the show. And-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... I didn't really know anything about the show, going in.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And she spent, so she got to go first, and she talked about how problematic my study was. And the way she described it, were ways that I did not think was consistent.Scott Cunningham:With what the the study was.Peter Arcidiacono:Right. And so, my response to that, really, by grace-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... was to say, if I thought that was what the paper was saying, I'd be upset too. And then, was able to pivot into, look, we're actually on the same side on this. We want black students at Duke to succeed in the majors that they're interested in. And to that point, we need to identify the barriers that are affecting that, and what resources we can provide, to make it so that that would not be the case.Scott Cunningham:So what are you going to say to your old, let's say you could go back in time, 10 years to that young economist, writing this paper. Without telling him exactly what specifically to say, you can only say a general principle. As you think about writing this, I want you to think about writing it in a different way. What exactly should you be? I guess, what I'm getting at, is how would you pause, what is, what pedagogically should we be communicating to young economists, about language and audience, that we haven't been doing historically, so that we are not unnecessarily tripping people up and creating confusion?Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah. Yeah. I think it's really tricky, because on a lot of things, it's just very hard to have a discussion where the emotions are not involved.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:So when you speak about things related to race, and you talk about things in a very matter of factual way-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... that can be heard as you don't care.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:You are not interested in fixing the problem at all. You're just explaining away why we don't need to do anything.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And that's how, there's actually this marriage book, I really like, which is, again, I'm going to say this, it's going to come across as stereotyping. This is obviously distributions overlap, but it's called Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti. And the ideas is that men compartmentalize everything. So we're talking about this specific issue, not seeing how it relates to the broader picture.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:The advice, the marriage advice I always give now, is don't try to solve your wife's problems. That's always a mistake.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And, but that's effectively, as economists, exactly what we do. We are working in the little waffle box.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:Focused on this particular problem.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And I don't know how to change that with regard to economics papers. I really try to be very nuanced in my language and such.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:Maybe in how you motivate the paper, recognizing the racial inequities and the historical discrimination.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:But there is a sense in which it will not be enough.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah. There's this, I can't, I just now drew a blank on the, I teach it all. I can see the slide in my deck, but there's a famous computer scientist. And he says, this principal about writing code, and he says, "Be conservative in what you do, and be liberal in what you accept from others." And it's this principle of code writing, which I guess is like, he's basically saying, "When you write code, it needs to be, the noise to signal ratio needs to be very, very low. You need to be very clear in what it's doing, in a very efficient choice to minimize this, these unnecessary errors." But when you're receiving the code, either from your earlier part of the code, or for some other foreign source, you have to change your viewpoint in that sense, because really, the goal, when you're on the receiving end of the code, it seems like your goal is to be this antenna.Scott Cunningham:And this antenna is trying to extract information from any meaningful information from the noise. And so, you have to have, as a listener, a certain amount of grace that tolerates that this other person may make mistakes, doesn't say it all right, goes really, really to great lengths to try to, you go to great lengths, to try to figure out exactly what the message is, and what it isn't. And it does seem like, successful communication is a, about a sender who is being clear, and a receiver that is being charitable in what they're going to allow the sender to say, unless the goal is conflict.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right.Scott Cunningham:If the goal is conflict, then obviously, you don't do that. What you do with conflict, is you find the most bad, then, it's just bad faith. It's just like, trap a person, win the debate. And sometimes, many of us don't realize who we're talking to. We don't know if we're talking to a good faith or a bad faith person. But there's limits, I think, to what an economist or anyone can do, if the person they're talking to really is not interested in connecting.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right. And it's interesting, because I think when I either speak publicly, or even giving seminars to economics audiences, the first part is building trust.Scott Cunningham:Totally.Peter Arcidiacono:We have the same goals.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:We may have different views about how to get there. And I've got some information that may change your mind on this.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And the issue is whether they can hear the information I say, or if it's going to be ruled out because I'm a bad person.Scott Cunningham:Right. Well, let me ask you something. So these tests for, okay, so you correct me where my thinking is wrong. Testing for racial discrimination in admissions. I could imagine econometrics one, I get the data set from Harvard, and I run a regression of admit onto a race dummy.Peter Arcidiacono:Right.Scott Cunningham:And then, I interpret the statistical significance on the race dummy. And then, I add in more observables. In what sense is this, philosophically, what we are trying to do in the United States, legally, to detect for whatever it is that's violating the constitution. And in what sense is it a big fat failure, that's not what we're trying to do? Can you elaborate that as a multivariate regression-Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah. So I think, how to interpret that beginning coefficient, I don't think that coefficient has much of an interpretation, particularly in admissions, because of who applies. And that was, one of the papers that we published on this, is about Harvard's recruiting practices.Scott Cunningham:... Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:And Harvard, they recruit a lot of people. And particularly, African Americans, who simply have no chance of admission. And so, you could make it. And that could be part of the reason, right, would be, we want to appear as though when you do just that one regression with that one variable-Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:... through affecting my applicant pool, I can always make it so that coefficient-Scott Cunningham:So what happening? So if I've got a university, just in real simple sense, let's say a university, if they're white, they span their, they basically task to the university, to whoever, and they say, "Get a pool of white applicants, use this rule. Get a pool of black applicants, use this rule." And it's just very, very different rules.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right.Scott Cunningham:Okay. If I then run a regression, how in the world am I going to detect racial preference in admission, when racial preference was used in the drawing up of the application in the first place?Peter Arcidiacono:So I think that's where, I think one of the principles that, it's not randomization for sure.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:But one of the key principles, is how do you think about selection on observables versus unobservables?Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Right, right.Peter Arcidiacono:And so, if you can account, in the case we just described, if it was differences in test scores alone, once you account for test scores, then you could see how they were treated differently. Conditional on those test scores.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And typically, the way that works, is that when you add controls, the coefficient on the discriminated group typically goes down, because there was, because of history discrimination, that there was going to be differences in those things. That was why you had the program in the first place.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:But what's interesting in the case of Asian Americans, is it tends to go in the opposite direction. Right? So they're stronger on a lot of the observables.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:You add controls, it looks like the coefficients becomes more negative. For African Americans-Scott Cunningham:The coefficient, as in, the, so if I did a regression of admit onto an Asian dummy, nothing else, it'll be positive?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, it depends. So it would be positive if you had nothing else, and you excluded legacies-Scott Cunningham:Legacies.Peter Arcidiacono:... and athletes.Scott Cunningham:Okay. So I dropped the legacy and the athletes. I regress admit onto an Asian dummy. Asians are more likely to... So when does the, so what-Peter Arcidiacono:When it's slightly positive and insignificant.Scott Cunningham:... Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:As soon as you add anything related to academic background-Scott Cunningham:So then, I put in high school GPA and zip code, and I start trying to get at these measures of underlying academic performance, observable. And that's when it flips?Peter Arcidiacono:Oh yeah. Yeah. This is something I just did not appreciate before the Harvard case, is how incredibly well Asian Americans are doing academically.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:If you did admissions based solely on academics, over half would be Asian American. That is a stunning number. All groups would go down, and Asian Americans would be the only group that went up.Scott Cunningham:Okay. Say that again. I didn't quite follow. So what will astound me? What would it?Peter Arcidiacono:So Asian Americans, they're in the low twenties, in terms of their share of admits, or something like that.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:When you look at typical applicants.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:If you had admissions based solely on academics-Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:... with some combination of test scores and grades-Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:... they would be over half of Harvard's.Scott Cunningham:I see. Got it. They're just, it's just such an incredibly selective group. Selective, in terms of the measures of probable performance and success, and all these things. They are, as a group, high... What's the right word? How do you, this is one of these things, we're using the languages, is really careful. I was going to say, I know economists, we have models that say high type, low type. And obviously, it's like, what's the right way to start talking about these young people? These are young people at the beginning of their, everybody comes at a difference. So what's the right, what's the loving, charitable, honest way of talking about people with these underlying differences?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, I think that, what happened to them before college, was such, that on average, you see tremendous differences-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... in the skills that have been accumulated-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... prior to college.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. So there appears to be, one way you could describe it, is to say, there appears to be differences in human capital.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right. But I think human capital, I guess-Scott Cunningham:Unobservable human capital appears to be different, but it's like showing up on these observable dimensions.Peter Arcidiacono:... That's right.Scott Cunningham:Got it.Peter Arcidiacono:And for me, that doesn't, in any way, point the finger, and say there's something wrong-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... with the groups that aren't doing well on that.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. No.Peter Arcidiacono:And in fact, there's some people who argue, look, the differences in test scores, the reason African American score worse on the tests, is because of stereotype threat.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And that idea is that everybody expects them to do poorly. And so, they do poorly.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:To me, that's giving the K through 12 education system a pass. There are real differences-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... in the K through 12 education experience-Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:... for African Americans.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:That's what we need to fix.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:We can't shy away from the real issue. And that's actually one of my big concerns with places like the UC system, saying, "We don't want standardized tests anymore." We're just going to ignore that there's a serious deficiency.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:Not that the people are deficient, that the educational system was deficient-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... for these students.Scott Cunningham:It's interesting. It's like, one of the papers I teach a lot, is, I know you're familiar with, is Mark Hoekstra's review of economics and statistics article, on the returns to attending the state flagship school. I've always thought-Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah.Scott Cunningham:... that this really interesting study, it feels relevant to what you're working on with Harvard and UNC, because it's about, I feel like when I was in graduate school, I came away from my labor courses, just realizing attending college is crucial. College is an anti-poverty program, as far as I can tell. You could see it in my work on crime, with the, you and I actually have some similar backgrounds. We're both interested in sex ratios and marriage markets.Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah.Scott Cunningham:But you could see the incarceration rate of African American men just plummeting, with college attainment, levels of college enrollment. But so, it's like, I graduated thinking, "Oh, well, the returns to college are important." But then, it's like, Mark's paper highlighted that there was this heterogeneity, even there. Even in these, in terms of the flagship school and Harvard.Peter Arcidiacono:Right.Scott Cunningham:And the reason why this stuff is important, I feel like it gets into these complicated things with regards to how we've decided to organize America, because the United States, we purchase goods and services using, goods and services go into the utility function. In many ways, that's the, trying to get utility functions that are virtuous and correlated with a life that's worth living, is the big goal. But we buy those goods and services at market prices, using labor income. And so, then, it always wraps back into this issue about something like Harvard or Chapel Hill, which is, some of these schools have imbalanced returns that affect labor income and quality of life, or might arguably, subjective wellbeing, as it's measured by utility. And I guess I'm just sitting here thinking to myself, if you have a group of people who are just for historical, it's not even historical accident, because they were historically discriminated against in the United States.Scott Cunningham:But at this point, it's a stock. African Americans have come to the table with this different kind of human capital, that's going to end up shaping all of their labor income. It's going to have massive impacts on labor income, where they go to college. It's like, I don't see how you can separate out the fact that there, we've got to decide, collectively, what exactly is the goal for these different groups of people that live here in the United States, and that one of the existing mechanisms for income, is college. And it all wraps back into this whole issue, about what exactly should the composition of the student body be, given these ridiculously imbalanced returns to each of these individual schools?Peter Arcidiacono:That's right. But I think that some of those things could be balanced more, if we were doing the things that were actually successful in changing the human capital-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... upfront. And so, one of the most, it was really disappointing, in my mind, when, after Floyd, I think KIPP Charter schools decided that their motto was no longer appropriate. Be nice, work hard. And I say that, mainly because no excuse charter schools, which no excuse, that's something that you can't really say quite the same way now.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:These schools were incredibly successful at closing the achievement gap.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:They were actually very successful.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:We could be doing that. That's where the resources ought to go.Scott Cunningham:Right, right.Peter Arcidiacono:Instead, what you see in California now, is they're getting rid of advanced classes. There's two ways to deal with an achievement gap, right? You can bring the people who aren't doing as well, up.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:Or you could bring the people who are doing well, down. The getting rid of the advanced classes, is not bringing, in my mind, those students up.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And if anything, it's providing huge advantages to people of means, because you cripple the public education system, take the path out for them to develop that human capital.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And then, the people with resources send their kids to private schools, so that stuff isn't going to go on.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And that's where I think a lot of the discussion, we can talk about affirmative action at Harvard. At the end of the day, that's really about appearances. The people are going to Harvard are all, most of them are coming from an incredibly rich backgrounds.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:Regardless of what race. There are differences across the races. But that's where the action is.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And that's what we typically focus on in education. But where we really need to be doing more, is for the lower income kids.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And COVIDs is going, we're starting to see that that's going to be a train wreck. Our education for this kids who went to-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... public schools.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's certain elasticities, that I think COVID highlights, which is that there's a, there are groups of students who, probably, their ability to substitute to the best case scenario in a very difficult situation, was really, they had a very high, they were able to do it. It may not have been, it wasn't a perfect substitute. They were able to continue to do it. And I think for some groups of students, it was a train wreck.Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah.Scott Cunningham:Just their ability to make those substitutions to whatever was required, could be anything ranging from the access to physical resources, like computing, computers, and wifi that's stable, and all these things, to, just simply, the way your brain works. Just being able to be present. I definitely think that COVID cut a mark through the students, that, it did in our family, completely cut a mark through students in weird jagged way, for sure.Peter Arcidiacono:But within your family, you're able to substitute in ways that other families cannot.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And that's the catch. And I think that, I don't work a lot in the K through 12 space, so this is a non-expert opinion on that. But if my read on the studies, is if you find positive effects of, say, charter schools, Catholic schools, smaller class size, if you're going to find positive effects for anyone, it's going to be inner city African Americans. And I think that the reason that you see that, is the way family substitutes, that they're not, their families are not in as good of a position to substitute-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... the way my family is. My kid has a bad teacher, we're going to do the bad effects.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:So you're going to think, "Oh, the teacher's fine." But no, we even did the effects of that teacher, in ways that other families cannot.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. Right. So what do you think is the smoking gun evidence, that that Harvard University has to... What's the smoking gun fact, that's evidence for, that's the most damning evidence for racial discrimination in admissions, that-Peter Arcidiacono:So racial discrimination against Asian Americans, I think that there's a, there's so many damning facts. Well, I'll start with the first one, which is Harvard's own internal offices. They have their own internal research teams. They estimated models of admissions, and consistently found a penalty against Asian Americans.Scott Cunningham:... Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:You could look at that. You'll hear people say, "Well, those are simplistic models." The fit of those models was incredibly high.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:I think. So they were explaining-Scott Cunningham:I think people underestimate the shoe leather sophistication that goes on in these admissions office, with developing their own internal models.Peter Arcidiacono:... Well, and what was striking, is Harvard's defense of this was, "Well, we really didn't understand the model."Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:Well, what was interesting, is that those models also had whether or not you were low income, in it.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:And they were confident that those models, the same model, showed that they were giving a bump to low income students.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:It's like, you're going to interpret the coefficient one way when it's the result you like, and another way, when it's the result you don't like.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. So their own models showed, so what was the penalty? What was it? It was a dummy, a coefficient on a binary indicator for Asian American, or Asian?Peter Arcidiacono:That's right. That's right.Scott Cunningham:How big was it?Peter Arcidiacono:And then, also, it even had stuff on the personal rating. You can see, there was charts from their office that shows, what do you know, Asian Americans on all of Harvard's ratings, are scoring either much better than whites-Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:... or the same as whites, even on the alumni personal rating. So Harvard has these alumni interview, the students, and even on that, Asian Americans are doing similarly to whites.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And then, you see their own personal rating, based, not on meeting with the applicants. They do much, much worse.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, so what does Harvard have to prove?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, I think typically, in something like discrimination cases, well, what they have to prove, probably depends on the judge, I suppose-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... is the catch. What they were able to say at trial, were things like, "Well, the teachers must be giving them poor ratings. We don't think that Asian Americans are deficient on personal qualities, but maybe the teachers are scoring them poorly." How that is an excuse. I don't-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. I don't see what they're trying to... This is, I guess, where it's frustrating, because I'm struggling to know exactly what the objective function for Harvard is, in their own stated goals. What is their objective function? To create a particular kind of cohort? What is the cohort?Peter Arcidiacono:... Well, I think you'd get a lot of gobbledygook when it comes to that-Scott Cunningham:That's what I was wondering. Yeah. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:... Yeah. So, but I think it is also interesting to think about the counterfactual of, if this case was not associated with affirmative action at all-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... would it have played out the same way? And to me, I think the answer is no. Honestly, I don't think Card even takes the case.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:I think it would've been a much better... Your worse look for Harvard than it was. I think that it was a bad look for Harvard as it was, but because of who brought the case, and because of its ties to affirmative action, that gets back to that waffle analogy, right? If you look at it in the context of the waffle, there's just simply no argument in my mind, for the way they're treating Asian Americans.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:It's a clear cut discrimination case.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:And if you just put it in a different context, it would just be completely unacceptable. Imagine Trump Towers having a discrimination suit brought against them by black applicants. And the defense being, "Look, it's not that we're discriminating against black applicants. They just happen to score poorly in our likability rating."Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:That would be outrageous.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:There would be protests. This is because it's tied to that third rail of affirmative action.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:But to me, the judge could have ruled, "Look, you can have affirmative action, but you got to stop discriminating against Asian Americans relative to whites.Scott Cunningham:So then, if you could fill up half of Har... So is this what the thing is? Harvard, as a university, collectively, however this ends up being decided, collectively, they have a preference over their student composition.Peter Arcidiacono:Right.Scott Cunningham:And that preference is discriminatory.Peter Arcidiacono:Their preference, I think, lines up with Kendi's in some sense. They would like to have their class look like the population.Scott Cunningham:They would like to have it look like, that they would like 13% African American, whatever percent, what is it, Asian American is what, five, is single digit?Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. And they would like to have a balanced portfolio of Americans.Peter Arcidiacono:And, but even that, I think, is giving Harvard too much credit, in the sense that, what we choose to balance on, we choose to balance on skin color.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:You're not balancing on income.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:You're not balancing on parental education.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:A whole bunch of other things you could've balanced on. Why-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. There's like an infinite number of character. Every person is a bundle of, just almost an infinite number of characteristics. And it's not practically... Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... If you really want a representative class, then you do a lottery among high school graduates.Scott Cunningham:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.Peter Arcidiacono:That would be the only way.Scott Cunningham:That would be the only way, the only way it would be to have a randomized student body. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:Do you feel like ask this about, was by somebody from a class at Duke, about how would you make the admissions process more equitable?Scott Cunningham:Uh-huh.Peter Arcidiacono:And I'm like, it's a selective admissions process. I don't even know what that-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... means. Even a process where you did the lottery, why is that equitable, because you've got the winners and the losers? The lottery. We're not equalizing outcomes for everybody. We're equalizing X anti.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. It's like, this is all this comp, this is this deep collective choice, social preferences questions about... And it's weird. I guess we're talking about this at Harvard, because we believe that Harvard University will literally change a kid's life, more than going to University of Tennessee, Knoxville, or something like that. Right? That's why we're having this conversation.Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah. I think that that's the perception, that it will literally change their kids' lives.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:I'm not totally convinced that of there being massive gains-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... relative to the counterfactual for-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... at that level.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:I think, when you're at the margin of going to college or not-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... that's the big margin.Scott Cunningham:That's the big margin. Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:College quality effects, I think get undone a little bit by college major effects.Scott Cunningham:Right, right, right.Peter Arcidiacono:So yeah. I think that's a real valid question, about whether it

I first met Peter Arcidiacano, professor of economics at Duke University, while I was a PhD student at the University of Georgia and I have followed his work since from a distance. I originally followed Peters work because he’d written several articles about sex from a two-sided matching perspective. I was struck by the fact that we both saw thinking about sexual relationships in terms of a matching problem. Two sided matching perspectives focus on the assignment mechanisms that bring people together, and when it comes to sexual relationships, the relative supply of possible partners and competition for those partners will in equilibrium result in pairings, some of which may become the most life sustaining and defining partnerships of those peoples lives. Peter’s work was gratifying to read, and I have often looked up to him for his successful merging of theory and econometrics to study topics I cared about. The economic way of thinking is not about topics, nor is it is not about data, even though economists tend to have particular topics they study intensely and use data usually to do so. The economic way of thinking does though typically involve careful study of allocation mechanisms, such as prices and markets, that bring the productive capacity of communities into existence. These things are important as they animate humans to work together, produce output that manages the production itself, and increasingly towards the end of history, left surplus for humans to enjoy. Who ends up in what activities doing what types of specialized work ultimately shapes that which is made, how much and how it is distributed. The allocations end up not only shaping our lives, but our children’s lives. Starting conditions can cast a long shadow lasting centuries even causing certain groups to creep ahead as more and more of the surplus mounts and accrues to them, while others watch as a shrinking part of the growing pie flows to them.In the United States, in the 21st century, one of the key institutions in all of this assignment of love and commerce has been the university. And within the university system, there are gradations of institutional pedigree and at the top of the pack sits elite institutions whose students seem practically destined to shape and receive the surplus. Given the path dependence in wealth, and how it has interacted with race, it is therefore no wonder that policymakers and economists have for decades sought to refine the rules by which schools can select high school applicants for admission. In many ways, our country’s fight over the use of race in selecting students into college is the old debates about capitalism and the self adjusting market system writ large. So it’s in this broader context about work, schools, matching and allocation mechanisms that I think of Peter and his scholarship. When I review the range of topics on Peters vita, I see the signature marks of the modern 21st century labor economist. Someone interested in markets and how they work to connect people into productive cooperation. Someone interested in institutions, someone concerned about inequality and discrimination, someone versed both in economic theory and econometrics, someone at home with a bewildering array of numbers in a spreadsheet. To me, it is natural that Peter has pivoted so fluidly between topics like sex, work, discrimination and higher education because in my mind these are all interconnected topics concerning the assignment mechanisms we use in America to organize society and maintain our collective standard of living.I invited Peter on the Mixtape with Scott as part of an ongoing series I call “economists and public policy”. The series focuses on how economics and economists think about and attempt to shape public policy. It includes people with a variety of perspectives, and even some who are critics of economics itself. Previous guests on the podcast in the “economists and public policy” series have been Sandy Darity, Elizabeth Popp Berman, Anna Stansbury, Mark Anderson, Alan Manning, Larry Katz, Jeremy West and Jonathan Meer. Peter has not only produced academic articles in some of economics’ most impactful outlets — he has recently served as expert witness in two major discrimination cases, one of which put him on the opposite side of the stand as David Card, winner of 2021 Nobel Prize in economics. You can read about the cases here. They involve the broader topic of race and affirmative action at universities. The cases more specifically involve whether Harvard and UNC Chapel Hill admissions criteria show signs of discrimination. One of the things about Peter’s involvement as expert witness that I want to highlight, though, is that his expert testimony was, at its core, an example of the role that econometrics can play in the shaping of public policy. It is more and more the case that economics’ role in the shaping of public policy in the 21st century will involve not merely economic theory, but also statistical analysis of complex datasets too, and I think it is worth pausing and noting that the economist shapes public policy oftentimes these days as much through interpreting data as her counterpart did using pure economic theory. I hope you find this discussion with Peter thought provoking and informative about both his work on these cases, but also about the role of economics and econometrics in forming public policy. But I also hope that the interview will give you a deeper insight into Peter and who he is. Scott’s Substack as well as The Mixtape with Scott are supported by user subscriptions. Please share this episode to people within and outside economics that you think might be interested. I love doing these interviews and using the substack to do deeper dives into econometrics and the lives of economists and if you find this work valuable, please consider subscribing and supporting it. Scott's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.TranscriptScott Cunningham:In this week's episode of Mixtape: the Podcast, I had the pleasure of talking with a professor at Duke University, named Peter Arcidiacono. I can never pronounce it correctly, no matter how many times I try. I first met Peter in graduate school. He was, probably then, an assistant professor at Duke, where he has spent his entire career. I was a PhD student at the University of Georgia. And he had a research paper on a topic that I was also working on, involving marriage markets. He's been an incredibly prolific producer in the area of labor economics and education, as well as affirmative action. And he uses tools in econometrics, that I largely never invested in, structural econometrics and discrete choice modeling. So when I read his work, I usually do it, both, because I'm interested in the paper and the paper topic, but also because I'm hoping that this will be a chance for me to open my mind a little bit more, and pick up on some of that econometric modeling, that I lack.Peter is also an expert witness in a high profile case, right now, involving affirmative action and racial discrimination at Harvard University, and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, both of which have been combined into a single case. As I understand it, it's going for the Supreme court soon. In this interview, we walk through a lot of big and small issues around society's preferences around poverty, inequality, as well as the role that higher education is playing in both. My name is Scott Cunningham, and this is Mixtape: the Podcast.Scott Cunningham:Okay. This is great. I don't know if you remember. So this is an interview with professor of economics at Duke University, Peter Arcidiacono. And we're going to be talking about a range of topics. But just to give the reader and the listener a little bit of background, Peter, could you tell me a little bit about yourself, and what your involvement is with a current case, going before the Supreme court, involving University of North Carolina and Harvard University?Peter Arcidiacono:Certainly. And thanks for having me on. I've been at Duke now, for over 20 years. This was my first job out of grad school, and stayed here ever since. And a lot of my work has been on higher education, both with regard to choice of college major, as well as affirmative action.And one of the really dissatisfying things about working on affirmative action, is that universities hide their data. So you can't really get a good sense of how the programs are working, because you typically don't have the data. And I think that that really matters, because to me, so much of the discussion about affirmative action, is in the binary. Either we have it, or we don't have it. But what it means to have it, is something, as economists, we would think about, that's something we would be optimizing over. And so, there's really a large space between race as a tiebreaker in admissions, and what somebody like Abraham Kennedy would advocate for, which would be more of a quota system.And so, thinking about where you stand on that, to me, I had this opportunity to work on these two cases, two lawsuits. One brought against Harvard, and one against UNC, on the role of race in these admissions processes. And for me, it was an opportunity to look behind the veil, and see how these programs actually operated.My intent was always to, a feeling as though, if I'm going to be an expert on affirmative action, I should know how these processes actually work. So my intent was always to use this for the purposes of research, as well. And we've written a number of papers out of the Harvard case. Four have been accepted now, and we just released a fifth one on racial preferences of both schools. And we'll see what happens with that. So those lawsuits, I testified in trial, at both those cases. My counterpart in the Harvard case was David Card, who recently won the Nobel Prize. I was wondering how I would respond to that. And actually, my response, I got to go up against a Nobel Prize winner.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:So those experiences were somewhat traumatizing. But both experts, David Card and Kevin Hoxby, are pillars in the field, and people who have been very helpful to me, and who I have a great deal of respect for.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:So these cases have now, in both those cases, the side I was on lost at the first round. In the Harvard case, they also lost at the appellate round.Peter Arcidiacono:In UNC, it didn't actually go through the appellate round, because-Scott Cunningham:Oh, so-Peter Arcidiacono:... supreme court merged the cases.Scott Cunningham:... Both the Harvard University case and the Chapel Hill case, were already decided, but not at the Supreme Court level.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right.Scott Cunningham:Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:So the decision was appealed. It's now before the Supreme Court.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:I think the Supreme Court scheduled here, arguments in October, and then, we'll see when they release a decision.Scott Cunningham:Okay. So, and these are both cases involving affirmative action and racial discrimination amongst particular groups of people? Is that groups of students, is that right?Peter Arcidiacono:That's right. Though, in the UNC case, there's actually no claim of Asian American discrimination. So that actually, you only see that at Harvard. You don't see that at UNC. That doesn't mean, I think that Asian discrimination is unique to Harvard.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:I think it has to do with the fact of there not being that many Asian Americans in North Carolina.Scott Cunningham:North Carolina, right.Peter Arcidiacono:It's always been a bigger issue at the very top schools.Scott Cunningham:And you were called in, as an expert witness, for the plaintiff in both of those cases.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right.Scott Cunningham:Right. So David Card is the expert witness for Harvard, representing Harvard, against an accusation of, well, what exactly is the accusation against both of these institutions, and who brought these accusations against them?Peter Arcidiacono:So the group is called Students for Fair Admissions. And they basically got groups of students to, as their plaintiffs. Though, it's not about those particular students, in terms of remedies. And in Harvard, there's three claims. One, whether or not they're discriminating against Asian American applicants, relative to white applicants.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:Two, whether the size of the preferences given for underrepresented groups, is constitutional.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And three, whether there were race-neutral alternatives that they could have used. So the Supreme Court has said, "If there is a race-neutral alternative, you should use that."Scott Cunningham:Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:I'm not really involved at the race-neutral part. We had a different expert for that aspect.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:Though, in both cases, Card and Hoxby actually did the race-neutral part, as well.Scott Cunningham:What exactly does the constitution say a admissions committee can use, when drawing up a student cohort?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, so I'm not sure what the constitution has to say on it, but I can say what the history of this of the court challenges have been.Scott Cunningham:Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:So I think, it's Title VI of Civil Rights Act said, "You're not supposed to use race-"Scott Cunningham:Race.Peter Arcidiacono:"... in these types of things." And there are other categories too.Scott Cunningham:Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:But race is the focus of this one. Now, the reason they had that, was because of the history of ill treatment of African Americans.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And this is obviously going in the other direction-Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:... with regard to African Americans receiving preferences in the admissions process.Scott Cunningham:Mm. Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So, but then, the history was that the original decision, the Bakke case, said, "Look, you can't use race in admissions, because of reparations. You can only use it because of the benefits of diversity." So the state can have an interest in diversity. And that was a compromised position to get that swing justice, to sign onto it.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:Since then, there have been a number of cases. I think the ones that are most relevant right now, are the ones that came out of the Michigan cases.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And there was one at the undergraduate level, which they found that you could not use race as part of an explicit point system.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So you can get points for having a good SAT score, points for being a particular race, you add them up together, then you could rank the-Scott Cunningham:I see.Peter Arcidiacono:... applicant.Scott Cunningham:So there were schools that were doing a point system based on individual characteristics, like race. And that was, at that moment, it was unclear whether that would be legal. It was, I guess, or was it something that schools were, potentially, in a legal, bad situation, when they were using it? Or was it just not known?Peter Arcidiacono:I don't think it was clear. And that's where the court ruled. You cannot use it in that way.Scott Cunningham:Got it. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:At the same time, there was a case against Harvard's Law School. And on that one, they said that you could use race, holistically. As an economist, I can express anything as a formula. And then, the question is, whether you see all parts of the formula or not.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:So it gets a little tricky. And I think that, from my perspective, I would've rather had the ruling go in the exact opposite way.[inaudible 00:11:59] on if we're going to find in favor of one or the other.I would prefer a point system to a holistic one, because then, everything's clear.Scott Cunningham:Clear. Yeah. It seemed really precise-Peter Arcidiacono:[inaudible 00:12:09], to hide their data.Scott Cunningham:... Yeah. It seems like lots of times with the law, the imprecision of this language, as though it's a solution to the problem, is really challenging for designing policy.Peter Arcidiacono:I totally agree. Yeah.Scott Cunningham:So, okay. I want to set up the reader a little bit, oh, the listener, to know who you are before we dive into this, because I'm loving this thread, but I want people to know who you are. So before we get more into the case, can you tell me where you grew up, and why you got into economics? Your first, what was the touchstone that brought you into this field?Peter Arcidiacono:So I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. My first set of years were actually in Ellensburg, Washington, which is a town of 13,000. My dad was a math education professor.Scott Cunningham:Oh, okay. What university was he a professor at?Peter Arcidiacono:Central Washington University.Scott Cunningham:Okay. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:And then-Scott Cunningham:Hey, but what'd you say it was? What was it again?Peter Arcidiacono:... It was math education.Scott Cunningham:Math education.Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah. So he was teaching teachers how to teach math.Scott Cunningham:Oh. So you've always been, it's in the family to be interested in education?Peter Arcidiacono:Yes. And-Scott Cunningham:And even this math education part. That's another way of describing an economist that studies education.Peter Arcidiacono:... Right.Scott Cunningham:Math education.Peter Arcidiacono:Well, my parents actually met in linear algebra class, so.Scott Cunningham:Oh, that's romantic.Peter Arcidiacono:And I've got two brothers, and they were both math majors.Scott Cunningham:Oh, wow. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:I was the only non-math major.Scott Cunningham:Okay. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:But I came into college, and started out in chemistry. I think, Econ PhD programs are filled with former, hard science majors.Scott Cunningham:No joke. Yeah, yeah. They hit organic chemistry, and then, they changed their major.Peter Arcidiacono:Right. And I just couldn't stand the lab. It was too social. And one of my good friends, a guy who ended up being the best man at my wedding, was a couple years ahead of me, told me I should take an economics class.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:And it was amazing. I think that just the way of thinking, just worked naturally for me.Scott Cunningham:Well, so when you say way of thinking, the way of thinking that was, can you tell me what your 19 year old self would've been jarred by? What are the specific things, that economic way of thinking, that he was noticing?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, it just fit with a lot of how I operated. So I view economics as a great model of fallen man.Scott Cunningham:Uh-huh.Peter Arcidiacono:Fundamentally, I was the guy who always looked for the loopholes. So responding really well to incentives. I had a keen eye for how I could game the system.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And so, I think a lot about what economics is doing, is the dismal science, right? The reigns on the parade of well-intentioned policies.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:How are people going to get around the policies? Well, that's where I lived, was figuring out how I could game the system.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. Right. So you were, this idea of that rational choice paradigm, is that what you mean?Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah.Scott Cunningham:And that-Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah.Scott Cunningham:... that people would just simply, if they have goals, those goals don't just go away with a policy. They might just continue to try to achieve those goals at lowest cost, even then.Peter Arcidiacono:Exactly.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And the other studying thing, which I think, really affected why I ended up doing the research that I did, was, for me, the chemistry classes were just way harder-Scott Cunningham:Uh-huh.Peter Arcidiacono:... than economics classes.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And I'm not trying to say that any classes are easy.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:But there is definitely large differences-Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:... in every university, and what the expectations are-Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:... across fields.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And that distorts people's behavior.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So I view it, that most colleges are subsidizing students, to go into low paying fields. And how do they subsidize them to do that? They offer higher grades-Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:... and lower workloads, smaller class sizes. All those things work, so that lots of people come in wanting to major in well-paying fields, and switch in, and switch out.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And they do so because of the incentives the universities provide.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. So you got interested in economics, and that's like, you're describing some sort of price theory, microeconomics. But you've also have made a career out of being such a strong econometrician in this area of structural econometrics and discrete choice modeling. How did you get interested in those topics? What was your first reaction to econometrics?Peter Arcidiacono:I had a very strange econometrics background. So my first year econometrics, was taught by Chuck Manski.Scott Cunningham:Oh.Peter Arcidiacono:The whole year. And so, it was lots of bounds.Scott Cunningham:Uh-huh.Peter Arcidiacono:And then, my second year, it was all John Rust.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So a complete swing, right? So you go from the non-parametrics, what can you identify under the smallest number of assumptions?Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:To what can you identify, if you want an answer something really big.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:You got to make a lot of assumptions to make that.Scott Cunningham:Oh, boy. That's an interesting journey, right there.Peter Arcidiacono:So I actually never had the mostly harmless econometric-Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... at all.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And the econometrics has always been-Scott Cunningham:This was Wisconsin?Peter Arcidiacono:... That's right.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right.Scott Cunningham:What year was this?Peter Arcidiacono:In the econometrics, the advances were always more, because I needed to do something to estimate my models.Scott Cunningham:Right. This was mid nineties? This would've been the mid nineties, or late nineties?Peter Arcidiacono:I'd like to say late nineties. Yeah-Scott Cunningham:Late nineties? Okay. Yeah-Peter Arcidiacono:... [inaudible 00:19:10].Scott Cunningham:... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, keep going. Sorry.Peter Arcidiacono:So I was thinking about my own experience, in terms of choosing a college major, and thinking about, Well, people are learning over time. They start out those STEM classes, and figured out, wow, this is a little bit harder than I expected.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And then, moved through.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:So I had a mind, I actually had the idea for my job market paper, my first year. And had this idea of a forward looking model, of how people choose their college major.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And so, then, I go into John Rust's office, because he's my second year econometrics professor, and was describing this problem to him, that people are making decisions today, giving expectations about the future.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And he says, "Yeah, I think I can help you with that." And I was like, "No, you don't understand. This is a really hard problem." And of course, John Rust had written the [inaudible 00:20:13] paper about how to estimate these types of models-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... And he was fantastic with me. [inaudible 00:20:20]. He didn't say idiot. You could at least look at what I do, before you come to my office. He was fantastic with me.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And actually, the funny story about that too, is he's actually the only reason I'm an economics professor, because-Scott Cunningham:Oh, yeah?Peter Arcidiacono:... I only got into one grad school. Got rejected from much worse places in Wisconsin. It was the only place that accepted me.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:And the joke was that that was the year John rusted everybody in. So there were 53 of us to [inaudible 00:20:57].Scott Cunningham:That's awesome.Peter Arcidiacono:17 got PhDs.Scott Cunningham:Wow.Peter Arcidiacono:And if you look at another guy, one of my friends, I just actually found out we were actually at a conference in honor of John Rust, this past weekend.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And it turns out, that was the only place that admitted him, as well. And he's been incredibly successful too.Scott Cunningham:The John Rust fixed effect is filled with stories.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right.Scott Cunningham:That's really cool. That's really cool. I'm curious, thinking about what your, I want get to the Harvard and the Chapel Hill. But before we move on, you could imagine, had you gone to Princeton, or MIT, and worked with, or Berkeley, and worked with these, the treatment effects guys, like Imbens, and Angrist, and Card, and Kruger, and O'Reilly, and all these people. It's not just that your knowledge of econometrics would've been slightly different. Even the kinds of questions, that you would be asking, might be different. So I'm curious, what do you think your training and structural, under Manski and Rust, how has that shaped, not just the way you do your work, but even the types of questions that you ask, that you imagine, you might not have asked? For instance, just even thinking, modeling choice-Peter Arcidiacono:[Inaudible 00:22:40].Scott Cunningham:I'm sorry. I don't know. Did I lose you?Peter Arcidiacono:You froze on me.Scott Cunningham:Ah, I froze? Okay-Peter Arcidiacono:You're still frozen.Scott Cunningham:... I'm still frozen? Okay. There. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:Now, you're back. So you're asking about what types of questions.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. What kinds of questions do you think you ended up being really interested in, and working on? Not just the model that you wrote down, but even the actual topics. Because I'm curious, I'm wondering if listeners could really frame their understanding of this structural, versus this causal inference, tradition. Not just in terms of the technical pieces, but like this is practically how, the work a person ends up, that you think you ended up doing, versus if you had got Angrist as an advisor.Peter Arcidiacono:Oh, I think it has shaped me quite a bit. I am certain that if I'd gone to a place like Chicago, I would've probably ended up working with Steve Levitt. I am naturally attracted to some of those topics, that are more of a freakaconomics-type nature. And if you look at it, we actually had competing papers-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... on discrimination in the Weakest Link game show.Scott Cunningham:Uh-huh. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And I've written a couple of sports papers. So I have that in me, to think about those types of things. If I'm-Scott Cunningham:Topics, right? Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... Yeah.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:I think that the Manski Rust combination did have a big effect on me, and, in the types of questions that I asked. Which is what structural brings to the table, is thinking about mechanisms.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So when you think about the effect of affirmative action on outcomes, understanding why the effect is what it is, matters.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:How it affects application behaviors. How is affects what majors issues. What would be those counterfactuals? And for that, I think you need some of these structural approaches.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:Now, one of the things about those structural approaches, to say, typically involve making some pretty big assumptions.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And I think that that's where the Manski influences had on me, because I also have papers that use subjective expectations data. And I think that that is actually an incredibly promising area of work.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:It's quite clear that people don't know as much as they should know, when they make important decisions. Certainly, higher education being a prime example of that.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:COVID really makes that clear, you know? How can it be that the people who are unvaccinated, are least likely to wear a mask? Clearly, they're operating under very different beliefs about-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... what's going to happen.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. Right. Right. Okay. So let's move into this Harvard Chapel Hill project. So setting it up, tell me, what is the first event that happens, that makes this a case against Harvard? Not counting alleged discrimination, but the actual historical event, that leads to a need for an expert witness.Peter Arcidiacono:Well, I think the need for the expert witness came about, because Harvard had to release their data, in the context of the trial.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So in the context of the lawsuit, the claim was there were some smoking guns that suggested the possibility, for example, of Asian American discriminationScott Cunningham:That would not fit this holistic criteria, that you mentioned earlier?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, so, it's an interesting question, right? So you can't have with the holistic criteria, you can take race into account, but the question is whether you could take race into account, in a way that penalizes a group, relative to white applicants?Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:So it might be one thing to say, "We're going to give a bump for African Americans, relative to whites."Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:Maybe another thing to say, "We're going to give a bump for whites, relative to Asian Americans."Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Okay. So they've had a lawsuit brought against Harvard. Harvard's had a lawsuit filed against them. What year is-Peter Arcidiacono:[inaudible 00:27:32]. Sorry, say it again.Scott Cunningham:What year would that have been?Peter Arcidiacono:Oh, man. I think it was back in 2015, or something like that.Scott Cunningham:2015. Did anybody see that coming? Or was this odd, this is just inevitable?Peter Arcidiacono:I think that, they were advertising for plaintiffs, students who had been rejected. So certainly, there was an intent to file such a lawsuit, for sure. And then, they had to weigh what universities to file it against. And they chose Harvard, because of the patterns on what were going on with Asian Americans. And I think UNC had more to do with the, there was some evidence in the record, from past cases, that race-neutral alternatives would work there.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm. Okay. So you get involved. How do you get selected as the expert witness? And what's your job, exactly, in all this?Peter Arcidiacono:So I think I get selected, I've written a couple of survey articles on affirmative action. And I view it that there are lots of nuances. So the fact that I would actually say there are nuances, as opposed to it being always good-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... made it attractive for them, I think.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And back in 2011, there was actually a protest here, at Duke, over one of my studies.Scott Cunningham:Oh, really?Peter Arcidiacono:Yes. So that one, we were actually using Duke data, and confronting a tough fact, which is lots of black students at Duke came in, wanted to major in STEM and economics, but switched out. In exploring why they were switching out at such a higher rate, relative to white applicants.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:So for men, it was very extreme.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:8% of white men switched out of STEM and economics-Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:... to a non-STEM, non-economics major. Over 50% of black males switched out. And you look at that, you think, that's a problem.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And once you account for the differences in academic background, prior to Duke, all those racial gaps go away. And I think what, the path to the protest to serve in the long run. So I won't get into all details of that, but I think that they didn't believe the fact at first.Scott Cunningham:And what was the fact exactly, that the racial discrimination, the racial bias, the racial differences vanished, once you conditioned on what, exactly?Peter Arcidiacono:I conditioned on academic background.Scott Cunningham:Oh, I see. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:Course and such like that. But I think even the original effect, they were surprised by, which was that the switch out rates were so different.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And at that time-Scott Cunningham:But why is that a protest against you? What does that have to do with you, if you're just documenting facts?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, I think that the negative press headline said, potentially racist study says black students are taking the easy way out. And so-Scott Cunningham:Potentially racist study.Peter Arcidiacono:Potentially racist study. Yes.Scott Cunningham:This study was racist.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right. And I think that the issue, it actually makes a lot more sense now, than it did to me at the time. And economists thought this was crazy at the time. It's actually interesting, because I got attacked from people all over the country. It didn't make a major news flash, but within certain circles, it did. And actually, one of the people who wrote about it at the time, was Abraham Kendi. This was before he changed his name. He's not the, he wasn't famous in the same way that he is now. But the fact that I wasn't pointing the finger at the departments, I was pointing the finger, I think it was interpreted as victim blaming. It's their fault that they're switching out because they're not prepared. That's never how I would want to frame it. I would want, to me, this is, the issue is that you're not prepared-Scott Cunningham:You think you framed it?Peter Arcidiacono:No, I don't think so. But the way economists talk about things is different.Scott Cunningham:I know. I think that something, I think we're, a generous view is that we can't, we don't know what we sound like or something. I get into this a lot with my work on sex work, and I've, I work really hard to try to be very factual. And it, the use of words can be so triggering to a group of people. And I can never, I still can't quite articulate what exactly it is, in hindsight, that I, what word I used that was so wrong. But you feel like you would write that paper differently now?Peter Arcidiacono:Knowing that non economists would read it? Yes.Scott Cunningham:What would you do differently?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, I think, you have to be much more, when I say, it counts for the differences in switching behavior.Scott Cunningham:Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:The way other people hear that, is I'm able to explain why every single person switches their major, and has nothing to do with other factors. That's the reductionist claim against economists, as opposed to, on average, this is occurring.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:So I did a radio interview at the time, and one of the people on the show was a blogger from Racialicious, who was a regular on the show. And-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... I didn't really know anything about the show, going in.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And she spent, so she got to go first, and she talked about how problematic my study was. And the way she described it, were ways that I did not think was consistent.Scott Cunningham:With what the the study was.Peter Arcidiacono:Right. And so, my response to that, really, by grace-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... was to say, if I thought that was what the paper was saying, I'd be upset too. And then, was able to pivot into, look, we're actually on the same side on this. We want black students at Duke to succeed in the majors that they're interested in. And to that point, we need to identify the barriers that are affecting that, and what resources we can provide, to make it so that that would not be the case.Scott Cunningham:So what are you going to say to your old, let's say you could go back in time, 10 years to that young economist, writing this paper. Without telling him exactly what specifically to say, you can only say a general principle. As you think about writing this, I want you to think about writing it in a different way. What exactly should you be? I guess, what I'm getting at, is how would you pause, what is, what pedagogically should we be communicating to young economists, about language and audience, that we haven't been doing historically, so that we are not unnecessarily tripping people up and creating confusion?Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah. Yeah. I think it's really tricky, because on a lot of things, it's just very hard to have a discussion where the emotions are not involved.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:So when you speak about things related to race, and you talk about things in a very matter of factual way-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... that can be heard as you don't care.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:You are not interested in fixing the problem at all. You're just explaining away why we don't need to do anything.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And that's how, there's actually this marriage book, I really like, which is, again, I'm going to say this, it's going to come across as stereotyping. This is obviously distributions overlap, but it's called Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti. And the ideas is that men compartmentalize everything. So we're talking about this specific issue, not seeing how it relates to the broader picture.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:The advice, the marriage advice I always give now, is don't try to solve your wife's problems. That's always a mistake.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And, but that's effectively, as economists, exactly what we do. We are working in the little waffle box.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:Focused on this particular problem.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And I don't know how to change that with regard to economics papers. I really try to be very nuanced in my language and such.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:Maybe in how you motivate the paper, recognizing the racial inequities and the historical discrimination.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:But there is a sense in which it will not be enough.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah. There's this, I can't, I just now drew a blank on the, I teach it all. I can see the slide in my deck, but there's a famous computer scientist. And he says, this principal about writing code, and he says, "Be conservative in what you do, and be liberal in what you accept from others." And it's this principle of code writing, which I guess is like, he's basically saying, "When you write code, it needs to be, the noise to signal ratio needs to be very, very low. You need to be very clear in what it's doing, in a very efficient choice to minimize this, these unnecessary errors." But when you're receiving the code, either from your earlier part of the code, or for some other foreign source, you have to change your viewpoint in that sense, because really, the goal, when you're on the receiving end of the code, it seems like your goal is to be this antenna.Scott Cunningham:And this antenna is trying to extract information from any meaningful information from the noise. And so, you have to have, as a listener, a certain amount of grace that tolerates that this other person may make mistakes, doesn't say it all right, goes really, really to great lengths to try to, you go to great lengths, to try to figure out exactly what the message is, and what it isn't. And it does seem like, successful communication is a, about a sender who is being clear, and a receiver that is being charitable in what they're going to allow the sender to say, unless the goal is conflict.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right.Scott Cunningham:If the goal is conflict, then obviously, you don't do that. What you do with conflict, is you find the most bad, then, it's just bad faith. It's just like, trap a person, win the debate. And sometimes, many of us don't realize who we're talking to. We don't know if we're talking to a good faith or a bad faith person. But there's limits, I think, to what an economist or anyone can do, if the person they're talking to really is not interested in connecting.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right. And it's interesting, because I think when I either speak publicly, or even giving seminars to economics audiences, the first part is building trust.Scott Cunningham:Totally.Peter Arcidiacono:We have the same goals.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:We may have different views about how to get there. And I've got some information that may change your mind on this.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And the issue is whether they can hear the information I say, or if it's going to be ruled out because I'm a bad person.Scott Cunningham:Right. Well, let me ask you something. So these tests for, okay, so you correct me where my thinking is wrong. Testing for racial discrimination in admissions. I could imagine econometrics one, I get the data set from Harvard, and I run a regression of admit onto a race dummy.Peter Arcidiacono:Right.Scott Cunningham:And then, I interpret the statistical significance on the race dummy. And then, I add in more observables. In what sense is this, philosophically, what we are trying to do in the United States, legally, to detect for whatever it is that's violating the constitution. And in what sense is it a big fat failure, that's not what we're trying to do? Can you elaborate that as a multivariate regression-Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah. So I think, how to interpret that beginning coefficient, I don't think that coefficient has much of an interpretation, particularly in admissions, because of who applies. And that was, one of the papers that we published on this, is about Harvard's recruiting practices.Scott Cunningham:... Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:And Harvard, they recruit a lot of people. And particularly, African Americans, who simply have no chance of admission. And so, you could make it. And that could be part of the reason, right, would be, we want to appear as though when you do just that one regression with that one variable-Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:... through affecting my applicant pool, I can always make it so that coefficient-Scott Cunningham:So what happening? So if I've got a university, just in real simple sense, let's say a university, if they're white, they span their, they basically task to the university, to whoever, and they say, "Get a pool of white applicants, use this rule. Get a pool of black applicants, use this rule." And it's just very, very different rules.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right.Scott Cunningham:Okay. If I then run a regression, how in the world am I going to detect racial preference in admission, when racial preference was used in the drawing up of the application in the first place?Peter Arcidiacono:So I think that's where, I think one of the principles that, it's not randomization for sure.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:But one of the key principles, is how do you think about selection on observables versus unobservables?Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Right, right.Peter Arcidiacono:And so, if you can account, in the case we just described, if it was differences in test scores alone, once you account for test scores, then you could see how they were treated differently. Conditional on those test scores.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And typically, the way that works, is that when you add controls, the coefficient on the discriminated group typically goes down, because there was, because of history discrimination, that there was going to be differences in those things. That was why you had the program in the first place.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:But what's interesting in the case of Asian Americans, is it tends to go in the opposite direction. Right? So they're stronger on a lot of the observables.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:You add controls, it looks like the coefficients becomes more negative. For African Americans-Scott Cunningham:The coefficient, as in, the, so if I did a regression of admit onto an Asian dummy, nothing else, it'll be positive?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, it depends. So it would be positive if you had nothing else, and you excluded legacies-Scott Cunningham:Legacies.Peter Arcidiacono:... and athletes.Scott Cunningham:Okay. So I dropped the legacy and the athletes. I regress admit onto an Asian dummy. Asians are more likely to... So when does the, so what-Peter Arcidiacono:When it's slightly positive and insignificant.Scott Cunningham:... Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:As soon as you add anything related to academic background-Scott Cunningham:So then, I put in high school GPA and zip code, and I start trying to get at these measures of underlying academic performance, observable. And that's when it flips?Peter Arcidiacono:Oh yeah. Yeah. This is something I just did not appreciate before the Harvard case, is how incredibly well Asian Americans are doing academically.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:If you did admissions based solely on academics, over half would be Asian American. That is a stunning number. All groups would go down, and Asian Americans would be the only group that went up.Scott Cunningham:Okay. Say that again. I didn't quite follow. So what will astound me? What would it?Peter Arcidiacono:So Asian Americans, they're in the low twenties, in terms of their share of admits, or something like that.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:When you look at typical applicants.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:If you had admissions based solely on academics-Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:... with some combination of test scores and grades-Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:... they would be over half of Harvard's.Scott Cunningham:I see. Got it. They're just, it's just such an incredibly selective group. Selective, in terms of the measures of probable performance and success, and all these things. They are, as a group, high... What's the right word? How do you, this is one of these things, we're using the languages, is really careful. I was going to say, I know economists, we have models that say high type, low type. And obviously, it's like, what's the right way to start talking about these young people? These are young people at the beginning of their, everybody comes at a difference. So what's the right, what's the loving, charitable, honest way of talking about people with these underlying differences?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, I think that, what happened to them before college, was such, that on average, you see tremendous differences-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... in the skills that have been accumulated-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... prior to college.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. So there appears to be, one way you could describe it, is to say, there appears to be differences in human capital.Peter Arcidiacono:That's right. But I think human capital, I guess-Scott Cunningham:Unobservable human capital appears to be different, but it's like showing up on these observable dimensions.Peter Arcidiacono:... That's right.Scott Cunningham:Got it.Peter Arcidiacono:And for me, that doesn't, in any way, point the finger, and say there's something wrong-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... with the groups that aren't doing well on that.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. No.Peter Arcidiacono:And in fact, there's some people who argue, look, the differences in test scores, the reason African American score worse on the tests, is because of stereotype threat.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And that idea is that everybody expects them to do poorly. And so, they do poorly.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:To me, that's giving the K through 12 education system a pass. There are real differences-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... in the K through 12 education experience-Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:... for African Americans.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:That's what we need to fix.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:We can't shy away from the real issue. And that's actually one of my big concerns with places like the UC system, saying, "We don't want standardized tests anymore." We're just going to ignore that there's a serious deficiency.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:Not that the people are deficient, that the educational system was deficient-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... for these students.Scott Cunningham:It's interesting. It's like, one of the papers I teach a lot, is, I know you're familiar with, is Mark Hoekstra's review of economics and statistics article, on the returns to attending the state flagship school. I've always thought-Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah.Scott Cunningham:... that this really interesting study, it feels relevant to what you're working on with Harvard and UNC, because it's about, I feel like when I was in graduate school, I came away from my labor courses, just realizing attending college is crucial. College is an anti-poverty program, as far as I can tell. You could see it in my work on crime, with the, you and I actually have some similar backgrounds. We're both interested in sex ratios and marriage markets.Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah.Scott Cunningham:But you could see the incarceration rate of African American men just plummeting, with college attainment, levels of college enrollment. But so, it's like, I graduated thinking, "Oh, well, the returns to college are important." But then, it's like, Mark's paper highlighted that there was this heterogeneity, even there. Even in these, in terms of the flagship school and Harvard.Peter Arcidiacono:Right.Scott Cunningham:And the reason why this stuff is important, I feel like it gets into these complicated things with regards to how we've decided to organize America, because the United States, we purchase goods and services using, goods and services go into the utility function. In many ways, that's the, trying to get utility functions that are virtuous and correlated with a life that's worth living, is the big goal. But we buy those goods and services at market prices, using labor income. And so, then, it always wraps back into this issue about something like Harvard or Chapel Hill, which is, some of these schools have imbalanced returns that affect labor income and quality of life, or might arguably, subjective wellbeing, as it's measured by utility. And I guess I'm just sitting here thinking to myself, if you have a group of people who are just for historical, it's not even historical accident, because they were historically discriminated against in the United States.Scott Cunningham:But at this point, it's a stock. African Americans have come to the table with this different kind of human capital, that's going to end up shaping all of their labor income. It's going to have massive impacts on labor income, where they go to college. It's like, I don't see how you can separate out the fact that there, we've got to decide, collectively, what exactly is the goal for these different groups of people that live here in the United States, and that one of the existing mechanisms for income, is college. And it all wraps back into this whole issue, about what exactly should the composition of the student body be, given these ridiculously imbalanced returns to each of these individual schools?Peter Arcidiacono:That's right. But I think that some of those things could be balanced more, if we were doing the things that were actually successful in changing the human capital-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... upfront. And so, one of the most, it was really disappointing, in my mind, when, after Floyd, I think KIPP Charter schools decided that their motto was no longer appropriate. Be nice, work hard. And I say that, mainly because no excuse charter schools, which no excuse, that's something that you can't really say quite the same way now.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:These schools were incredibly successful at closing the achievement gap.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:They were actually very successful.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:We could be doing that. That's where the resources ought to go.Scott Cunningham:Right, right.Peter Arcidiacono:Instead, what you see in California now, is they're getting rid of advanced classes. There's two ways to deal with an achievement gap, right? You can bring the people who aren't doing as well, up.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:Or you could bring the people who are doing well, down. The getting rid of the advanced classes, is not bringing, in my mind, those students up.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And if anything, it's providing huge advantages to people of means, because you cripple the public education system, take the path out for them to develop that human capital.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And then, the people with resources send their kids to private schools, so that stuff isn't going to go on.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And that's where I think a lot of the discussion, we can talk about affirmative action at Harvard. At the end of the day, that's really about appearances. The people are going to Harvard are all, most of them are coming from an incredibly rich backgrounds.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:Regardless of what race. There are differences across the races. But that's where the action is.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:And that's what we typically focus on in education. But where we really need to be doing more, is for the lower income kids.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:And COVIDs is going, we're starting to see that that's going to be a train wreck. Our education for this kids who went to-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... public schools.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's certain elasticities, that I think COVID highlights, which is that there's a, there are groups of students who, probably, their ability to substitute to the best case scenario in a very difficult situation, was really, they had a very high, they were able to do it. It may not have been, it wasn't a perfect substitute. They were able to continue to do it. And I think for some groups of students, it was a train wreck.Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah.Scott Cunningham:Just their ability to make those substitutions to whatever was required, could be anything ranging from the access to physical resources, like computing, computers, and wifi that's stable, and all these things, to, just simply, the way your brain works. Just being able to be present. I definitely think that COVID cut a mark through the students, that, it did in our family, completely cut a mark through students in weird jagged way, for sure.Peter Arcidiacono:But within your family, you're able to substitute in ways that other families cannot.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And that's the catch. And I think that, I don't work a lot in the K through 12 space, so this is a non-expert opinion on that. But if my read on the studies, is if you find positive effects of, say, charter schools, Catholic schools, smaller class size, if you're going to find positive effects for anyone, it's going to be inner city African Americans. And I think that the reason that you see that, is the way family substitutes, that they're not, their families are not in as good of a position to substitute-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... the way my family is. My kid has a bad teacher, we're going to do the bad effects.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:So you're going to think, "Oh, the teacher's fine." But no, we even did the effects of that teacher, in ways that other families cannot.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. Right. So what do you think is the smoking gun evidence, that that Harvard University has to... What's the smoking gun fact, that's evidence for, that's the most damning evidence for racial discrimination in admissions, that-Peter Arcidiacono:So racial discrimination against Asian Americans, I think that there's a, there's so many damning facts. Well, I'll start with the first one, which is Harvard's own internal offices. They have their own internal research teams. They estimated models of admissions, and consistently found a penalty against Asian Americans.Scott Cunningham:... Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:You could look at that. You'll hear people say, "Well, those are simplistic models." The fit of those models was incredibly high.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:I think. So they were explaining-Scott Cunningham:I think people underestimate the shoe leather sophistication that goes on in these admissions office, with developing their own internal models.Peter Arcidiacono:... Well, and what was striking, is Harvard's defense of this was, "Well, we really didn't understand the model."Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:Well, what was interesting, is that those models also had whether or not you were low income, in it.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:And they were confident that those models, the same model, showed that they were giving a bump to low income students.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:It's like, you're going to interpret the coefficient one way when it's the result you like, and another way, when it's the result you don't like.Scott Cunningham:Right. Right. So their own models showed, so what was the penalty? What was it? It was a dummy, a coefficient on a binary indicator for Asian American, or Asian?Peter Arcidiacono:That's right. That's right.Scott Cunningham:How big was it?Peter Arcidiacono:And then, also, it even had stuff on the personal rating. You can see, there was charts from their office that shows, what do you know, Asian Americans on all of Harvard's ratings, are scoring either much better than whites-Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:... or the same as whites, even on the alumni personal rating. So Harvard has these alumni interview, the students, and even on that, Asian Americans are doing similarly to whites.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:And then, you see their own personal rating, based, not on meeting with the applicants. They do much, much worse.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, so what does Harvard have to prove?Peter Arcidiacono:Well, I think typically, in something like discrimination cases, well, what they have to prove, probably depends on the judge, I suppose-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... is the catch. What they were able to say at trial, were things like, "Well, the teachers must be giving them poor ratings. We don't think that Asian Americans are deficient on personal qualities, but maybe the teachers are scoring them poorly." How that is an excuse. I don't-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. I don't see what they're trying to... This is, I guess, where it's frustrating, because I'm struggling to know exactly what the objective function for Harvard is, in their own stated goals. What is their objective function? To create a particular kind of cohort? What is the cohort?Peter Arcidiacono:... Well, I think you'd get a lot of gobbledygook when it comes to that-Scott Cunningham:That's what I was wondering. Yeah. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:... Yeah. So, but I think it is also interesting to think about the counterfactual of, if this case was not associated with affirmative action at all-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... would it have played out the same way? And to me, I think the answer is no. Honestly, I don't think Card even takes the case.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:I think it would've been a much better... Your worse look for Harvard than it was. I think that it was a bad look for Harvard as it was, but because of who brought the case, and because of its ties to affirmative action, that gets back to that waffle analogy, right? If you look at it in the context of the waffle, there's just simply no argument in my mind, for the way they're treating Asian Americans.Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:It's a clear cut discrimination case.Scott Cunningham:Mm.Peter Arcidiacono:And if you just put it in a different context, it would just be completely unacceptable. Imagine Trump Towers having a discrimination suit brought against them by black applicants. And the defense being, "Look, it's not that we're discriminating against black applicants. They just happen to score poorly in our likability rating."Scott Cunningham:Mm-hmm.Peter Arcidiacono:That would be outrageous.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:There would be protests. This is because it's tied to that third rail of affirmative action.Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:But to me, the judge could have ruled, "Look, you can have affirmative action, but you got to stop discriminating against Asian Americans relative to whites.Scott Cunningham:So then, if you could fill up half of Har... So is this what the thing is? Harvard, as a university, collectively, however this ends up being decided, collectively, they have a preference over their student composition.Peter Arcidiacono:Right.Scott Cunningham:And that preference is discriminatory.Peter Arcidiacono:Their preference, I think, lines up with Kendi's in some sense. They would like to have their class look like the population.Scott Cunningham:They would like to have it look like, that they would like 13% African American, whatever percent, what is it, Asian American is what, five, is single digit?Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. And they would like to have a balanced portfolio of Americans.Peter Arcidiacono:And, but even that, I think, is giving Harvard too much credit, in the sense that, what we choose to balance on, we choose to balance on skin color.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:You're not balancing on income.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:You're not balancing on parental education.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:A whole bunch of other things you could've balanced on. Why-Scott Cunningham:Yeah. There's like an infinite number of character. Every person is a bundle of, just almost an infinite number of characteristics. And it's not practically... Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... If you really want a representative class, then you do a lottery among high school graduates.Scott Cunningham:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.Peter Arcidiacono:That would be the only way.Scott Cunningham:That would be the only way, the only way it would be to have a randomized student body. Okay.Peter Arcidiacono:Do you feel like ask this about, was by somebody from a class at Duke, about how would you make the admissions process more equitable?Scott Cunningham:Uh-huh.Peter Arcidiacono:And I'm like, it's a selective admissions process. I don't even know what that-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... means. Even a process where you did the lottery, why is that equitable, because you've got the winners and the losers? The lottery. We're not equalizing outcomes for everybody. We're equalizing X anti.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. It's like, this is all this comp, this is this deep collective choice, social preferences questions about... And it's weird. I guess we're talking about this at Harvard, because we believe that Harvard University will literally change a kid's life, more than going to University of Tennessee, Knoxville, or something like that. Right? That's why we're having this conversation.Peter Arcidiacono:Yeah. I think that that's the perception, that it will literally change their kids' lives.Scott Cunningham:Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:I'm not totally convinced that of there being massive gains-Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:... relative to the counterfactual for-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... at that level.Scott Cunningham:Right.Peter Arcidiacono:I think, when you're at the margin of going to college or not-Scott Cunningham:Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:... that's the big margin.Scott Cunningham:That's the big margin. Yeah. Yeah.Peter Arcidiacono:College quality effects, I think get undone a little bit by college major effects.Scott Cunningham:Right, right, right.Peter A

In this 8th episode of Mixtape: the Podcast, I interviewed Sandy Darity, the Samuel DuBois Professor of Public Policy at Duke's Sanford School and pioneer in a framework within economics called "stratification economics". Stratification economics focuses on the determinants of group-level inequality rooted in group identity, relative position within society, and historic inequalities that compound over time. But we also discuss his love Tarheels basketball, growing up in the Middle East and the degree to which scarcity should be the foundation of economics or not. Get full access to Scott's Substack at causalinf.substack.com/subscribe

In this 8th episode of Mixtape: the Podcast, I interviewed Sandy Darity, the Samuel DuBois Professor of Public Policy at Duke's Sanford School and pioneer in a framework within economics called "stratification economics". Stratification economics focuses on the determinants of group-level inequality rooted in group identity, relative position within society, and historic inequalities that compound over time. But we also discuss his love Tarheels basketball, growing up in the Middle East and the degree to which scarcity should be the foundation of economics or not.

Dr. Sandy Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen graciously made a second appearance on our podcast. Originally recorded in July 2021, this conversation could have easily been recorded yesterday in light of the continuing need for reparations for Black people.

Racism in the United States has created an enduring wealth gap between Black and White Americans. This gap is rooted both in slavery itself and in the systematic exclusion of Black people from government assistance and social safety programs beginning after the Civil War and continuing through the Jim Crow era and after. Although it's not easy to capture the magnitude of this injustice, paying reparations to Black Americans is one way to begin to correct it. This week on EconoFact Chats, Professor William (Sandy) Darity Jr. explains the history of the racial wealth gap and why reparations remain necessary today. Sandy Darity is the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. His most recent book, coauthored with A. Kirsten Mullen, is 'From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century.'

Racism in the United States has created an enduring wealth gap between Black and White Americans. This gap is rooted both in slavery itself and in the systematic exclusion of Black people from government assistance and social safety programs beginning after the Civil War and continuing through the Jim Crow era and after. Although it's not easy to capture the magnitude of this injustice, paying reparations to Black Americans is one way to begin to correct it. This week on EconoFact Chats, Professor William (Sandy) Darity Jr. explains the history of the racial wealth gap and why reparations remain necessary today. Sandy Darity is the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. His most recent book, coauthored with A. Kirsten Mullen, is 'From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century.'

Key Insights:Nearly all successful political movements over the past 150 years have been strongly nationalisticA successful cosmopolitanism must therefore be a nationalistic cosmopolitanism—one that says your country is great because it learns from and has important things to teach other nations.We—somewhat surprisingly—find ourselves endorsing and agreeing with Matthew Desmond’s claim that an important root of some facets of American capitalism is found on the plantation.We endorse Sandy Darity and Darrick Hamilton’s calls for reparations,We enthusiastically and positively give a shout-out to the highly patriotic Nikole Hannah Jones and her contention that the 1619 founding makes African-Americans the most quintessential representatives of the good side of American nationalismYou cannot be a real patriot if you do not care about dealing with your country’s flaws—Carl Shurz: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right!”Wokeness is 21st century Puritan Protestantism—to build a City Upon a Hill and become a Light Unto the Nations, with a key part of that building composed of our confession that we are the unworthy who must place our hearts on the altar of and tremble before the Almighty .It is important to mean it: to repent, to take responsibility, to not just say that America owes reparations, but to work to make America pay what it owes.This podcast appears to be our version of: Three strongly patriotic white guys stand up for ‘Murka!Hexapodia!References:Ed Baptist: The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery & the Making of American Capitalism Trevor Burnard: Edward Baptist, Slavery and Capitalism Matthew Desmond: In Order to Understand the Brutality of American Capitalism, You Have to Start on the Plantation John J. Clegg: Capitalism and Slavery Nikole Hannah Jones: Our Democracy’s Founding Ideals Were False When They Were Written. Black Americans Have Fought to Make Them True P.R. Lockhart & Ed Baptist: How Slavery Became America’s First Big Business Alan L. Olmstead & Paul W. Rhode: Cotton, Slavery, & the New History of Capitalism Ernst Renan: What Is a Nation? +, of course:Vernor Vinge: A Fire Upon the Deep  Get full access to Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality at braddelong.substack.com/subscribe

Greta Thunberg famously chided world leaders for pursuing “fairytales of eternal economic growth”. In this episode we learn how short-termism is baked into our current economic story, and why we need to change this narrative. Ella meets poet, podcaster, and economics student, GEORGE THE POET and together they visit “the belly of the beast” - The Bank Of England - and begin to reimagine a new economic storyline.  We then meet people all over the world, creating the new economic systems that work for the long-term future of all inhabitants of the planet. This is economics for people who feel like economics isn't for them!Special thanks to the contributors to this episode, George The Poet, Jason Hickel, Kate Raworth, Andy Haldane, Temuera Hall and Sandy Darity, as well as Immy Kaur, Eduard Müller, Jared Bybee and Fanny Brøholm.George the Poet's latest project Common Ground encourages interaction with his Peabody Award-winning podcast Have You Heard George's Podcast?Jason Hickel's fascinating work can be found HEREFind out more about Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics in action HEREMore about Temuera Hall's work can be found HEREMore about William Sandy Darity's book From Here to Equality HEREWatch Greta Thunberg's full speech at the September 2019 UN Climate Action Summit HERE CREDITSThe Long Time Academy comes to you from Headspace Studios and The Long Time Project, and is produced by Scenery Studios.The series was created and produced by Lina Prestwood and Ella SaltmarsheProduced by Ivor Manley and Madeleine Finlay with research by Momoe Ikeda-ChelminskaExecutive producers at Headspace Studios are Ash Jones, Leah Sutherland & Morgan SelzerOriginal artwork by Mavi MoraisDesign by Loz Ives and Lewis Kay-Thatcher Original music, sound design and mixing by Tristan Cassel-Delavois, Scott Sorenson & Chris MurguiaClip of Greta Thunberg at the September 2019 UN Climate Action Summit courtesy of the United Nations 

In this week's bonus episode, which is available to everyone this week, we discuss Racism in the United States.  In particular, we look at the disparity of wealth between the races.  In addition to that, we talk about Sandy Darity.  He's the leading economist who is promoting reparation payments for descendants of people who were enslaved.    Next we look at the history of the top nominal tax rates.  They have been going down since they were legislated to be set at 94% in 1944.  The 400 top income earners in the United States now pay a lower effective tax rate than the bottom half of American families.    We wrap up the show with an other controversial one, trans athletes and in particular, the first trans woman is set to compete in Olympic weightlifting and there is a great deal of media fervor around it.  We give our personal thoughts on the issue.    Please consider supporting us on Patreon so that we can continue to improve the show.   Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/explodingstarpodcast Check out our website - https://explodingstarpodcast.wordpress.com/ Thanks for watching and we'll see you next week.

In this conversation, Philip spends time with Prof. Sandy Darity, the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics at Duke University . Prof. Darity is one of the foremost experts on the Black wealth gap and reparations and he and Philip discuss the economic and historical case for reparations and it's effect on the trajectory of the country. Prof. Darity holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has published or edited 13 books and more than 250 articles in professional journals. His newest book coauthored with Kirsten Mullen, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century, is available from the University of North Carolina Press. The Drop – The segment of the show were both Philip and his guest share tasty morsels of intellectual goodness and creative musings. Philip's Drop: The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K. Le Guin (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Lathe-Of-Heaven/Ursula-K-Le-Guin/9781416556961) Prof. Darity's Drop: The Black Jacobins – C.L.R James (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/86417/the-black-jacobins-by-c-l-r-james/) Capitalism & Slavery - Eric Williams (https://uncpress.org/book/9780807844885/capitalism-and-slavery/) Black Reconstruction In America – W.E.B Dubois (https://www.amazon.com/Black-Reconstruction-America-1860-1880-Burghardt/dp/0684856573) Special Guest: Prof. William A. Darity.

The Tulsa Massacre  So that we never forget. Memorial Day marks the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, one of the deadliest episodes of racial violence and domestic terrorism in U.S. history. When the thriving African American neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma — known as "Black Wall Street" — was burned and bombed to the ground by a white mob. An estimated 300 Black Americans, descendants of slavery were killed and over 1,000 injured. Whites in Tulsa actively suppressed the truth, and Blacks were intimidated by more violence into silence. But efforts to restore the horrific event to its rightful place in U.S. history are beginning this 100 years later. Black children of my generation were taught to know and never forget. Tulsa was not the only sight of violent pogroms attacking Blacks in that era.  Tonight, we teach the story of Tulsa. June 5, 2021, we begin our series "Reparations: The Debt That Is Owed" with guest, Dr. William J. "Sandy" Darity.

Since the murder of George Floyd on May 25th 2020, America has been reeling from the shock of that initial violent act and the anguish that sent thousands into the streets in protest across the country. And when those guilty verdicts were delivered, some were brought to tears that a black family had finally tasted something close to justice. But one verdict does little to untether America from its roots, some four hundred years deep and growing. Have the past year of protests and the push for reform bent America any closer toward justice for all? Or does justice remain a dream deferred for black America? I set out to answer those questions in a series of conversations with thinkers, doers, activists and policymakers who know intimately where we've been and perhaps where we're headed. Panelists include:Jelani Cobb, staff writer at The New Yorker and NBC News contributorAnna Deavere Smith, an actress, professor, and playwright who created a Tony nominated one woman show about the 1992 Los Angeles riotsRepresentative Mondaire Jones, freshman Democratic Congressman who represents New York's 17th Congressional DistrictCarmen Best, former Seattle police chief and NBC News law enforcement analystMarlon Petersen, host of the Decarcerated podcast and author of Bird Uncaged and Abolitionist Freedom SongTrayvon Free, writer, director and comedianLee Merritt, civil rights attorneyDr. Sandy Darity, the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor at Duke UniversityAmanda Seales, comedian and creator of Smart, Funny and BlackMartin Luther King II, the eldest son of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and a human and civil rights advocate We hope you enjoy these conversations from Trymaine Lee's NBC News Now special Can You Hear Us Now? One Year Later.For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.comFurther Viewing and Listening: Watch: Can You Hear Us Now? One Year LaterInto America: After George FloydInto America: The Weight of Bearing Witness

156 years after being promised 40 acres and a mule, African Americans are no closer to closing the wealth gap. Kirsten Mullen and Sandy Darity join Steve to talk about their book, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century.

As we approach MLK weekend, we invite you to lean into the truths of our shared story so we can rediscover our shared humanity and reimagine a new chapter for ourselves, our communities and our nation, together. We have to be willing to learn from the injustices of our past and be willing to trace them back to the roots, both in our systems and our hearts, if we're ever going to see these wounds heal. Hear special guest Dr. Sandy Darity wrestle with the question of where we go from here, chaos or community, in next week's JUST podcast double episode finale. 0:00 Episode starts  0:43 Personal check-ins start 1:52 Rob talks about feeling the despair of the last few week's events but feeling a renewed conviction 5:15 Jes talks about people being not surprised, and her word is being anchored 8:08 Rob frames up the last two episodes in asking the question: Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community? 11:17 Sandy Darity, Jr. joins the conversation 11:55 Rob introduces Sandy 13:13 Rob asks Sandy why this topic is so important to Sandy and how this cause became personal 13:32 Sandy talks about growing up in North Carolina and growing up in formative parts of legal segregation 15:59 Sandy talks about how reparations for descendents are not exclusively for those of slavery 18:49 Sandy talks about arguing in his book the need to close the racial wealth gap which could mean up to $10-$12 trillion dollars 20:01 Jes asks how reparations is defined, what it is and what is it not 21:08 Sandy uses his book definition of “program of acknowledgement redressing closure for a  previous injustice” 24:13 Sandy brings up a Malcom X quote about pulling the knife out and healing the wound being two different things 29:55 Rob asks what it would look like practically to execute this plan for reparations 30:27 Sandy addresses misperceptions as to why people might disagree with this idea 32:31 Sandy talks about three things needed for a plan: 1) specific plan for who qualifies, 2) establishing what the amount should be, 3) to make direct payments to individual recipients 34:41 Interlude 36:09 Jes asks if financial reparations are deployed, how and what is that going to last in the community 39:11 Sandy addresses their argument that having wealth as a foundation is a basis for business development 45:40 Sandy talks about House Resolution 40 as a commission that is supposed to generate a reparations plan 47:37 Rob asks what the biggest obstacle is that stands in the way of execution of reparations 48:08 Sandy talks about misperceptions associated with how people think about the sources of existing racial inequality 49:47 Jes encourages listeners to read the book From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century 50:17 Jes asks how listeners can engage with this work 50:32 Sandy talks about the Homestead Act and how that disproportionately aided slave owners over the slaves themselves when it came to land grants 54:33 Sandy signs off the conversation 55:46 Rob talks about this problem and the solution being cleaner 59:29 Rob talks about the power of narrative and misperceptions 1:02:59 Jes talks about they why of doing this work beyond just moving us into an equitable space 1:03:28 Jes and Rob talk about holding on to a spirit of hope 1:08:17 Conversation ends 1:08:20 Outro 1:08:39 Preview of next episode Thank you to DJ Pdogg and Producer Lo Key for our awesome music throughout the show! Follow DJ Pdogg online: http://www.djpdogg.com/ (www.djpdogg.com) https://twitter.com/DJPdogg?s=20 (Twitter) https://www.instagram.com/djpdogg/ (Instagram) Follow Producer Lo Key https://www.instagram.com/producerlokey/ (Instagram) Our sponsors: https://www.recitynetwork.org/ (ReCity Network) https://www.coastal24.com/ (Coastal Credit Union) Our hosts: Jes Averhart, cofounder of https://bwshomecoming.com/ (Black Wallstreet Homecoming) Rob Shields, executive director of the...

If you appreciate Parallax Views and the work of J.G. Michael please consider supporting the show through Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/parallaxviews On this edition of Parallax Views, Prof. William A. Darity, Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen join us to discuss their book From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century. What does reparations mean, who are the people fighting for it, and how can those fighting for it win in their efforts? Are there any issues with reparations? What of the controversial ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery) movement and its argument that reparations should only be afforded to the descendants of slavery in the United States? What does the term "40 acres and a mule" mean and what is it's relevance to the discussion of reparations for black Americans? Sandy Darity and Kirsten Mullen provide answers to all these questions and many more in the course of this fascinating discussion that deals with the history of slavery, the Civil War, the fight for freedom by black Americans, the racial wealth gap and the wealth differential between blacks and whites, the issue of general wealth vs personal savings and income as the key to wealth accumulation, black criticisms of reparations, the narrative that black Americans would not use reparations responsibly, savings and spending among black and white Americans, and other important subjects related to their book.

When a bi-racial student asked Dr. Power why his Jewish grandmother (a Holocaust survivor) received reparations but his black grandmother (a descendant of enslaved people) did not, the professor realized she did not have a satisfactory answer. She has spent the intervening two decades studying reparations cases around the globe to better understand who receives and who doesn't. And why or why not. In Part 1 of a two-part series, we welcome Dr. Kathy Powers to HOC Live. Dr. Powers helps frame the topic of reparations in a global context. With case studies from Haiti to Bosnia, she will help us to understand how reparations have been administered historically and what frameworks may be transferrable to the American case.

The Online Dinner Party with Marc Lee - Sandy Darity Discusses Reparations

The Online Dinner Party with Marc Lee - Sandy Darity Discusses Reparations

Hello everyone! Today's episode focuses on the inception of the Wealth Gap in the black community in America.  I had the pleasure of interviewing advocate of reparations and economist Dr. Sandy Darity of Duke University.  In our conversation we discussed: Exactly how the Wealth Gap started  A single event in history that arguably would have prevented the Wealth Gap from even occurring The importance of housing in closing the Wealth Gap Grab a copy of his new book From Here to Equality here. In other news, Smart Savvy Spenders masterclass is HERE! Get group training on what it takes to easily save, effectively spend and accomplish your money goals.  Use the code GETWEALTHY to receive 50% off! I can't wait to meet you! Sign Up Here. Get in Touch: @stacksnthecity Episode 78: The Wealth Gap and Who Get Reparations with Dr. Sandy Darity

"Economists begin with this notion of the free market invisible hand, and we need to be clear that the hand has a color — it's a white hand, let me say, a white male hand," said Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a professor of sociology at Duke University. ... I was a major in sociology and economics... I ended up choosing sociology, in part because of the foundation of economics is assumptions about the rational actor making decisions on a cost-benefit basis in something called efficient market. And we all know that the Homo sapiens — they're a complex animal shaped by multiple social forces and group divisions."Bonilla-Silva joined a panel of scholars — Daina Ramey Berry, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin; Arjumand Siddiqi, a professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of Toronto; and Mario Small, a sociology professor at Harvard University — for a discussion on July 13, 2020, about how the conceptual approaches of economics discount Black and Latinx perspectives, and what they think economics could learn from other disciplines. The discussion was moderated by Sandy Darity, a professor of economics, public policy and African and African American studies at Duke University.This talk was sponsored by UC Berkeley's Department of Economics and Economics for Inclusive Prosperity, co-founded by Berkeley economics professor Gabriel Zucman.Read a transcript and listen to the episode on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today's show focused on history of the Monuments in the South, as well as the Eno River Festival, and then we had some discussion around Reparation......Sandy Darity was our scheduled guest, and we will dwelve further into the conversation when he joins us in the next couple of weeks to talk about this issue;.....But, we got some perspective on it from some talks before we get to the deeper conversation......

Today's show focused on history of the Monuments in the South, as well as the Eno River Festival, and then we had some discussion around Reparation......Sandy Darity was our scheduled guest, and we will dwelve further into the conversation when he joins us in the next couple of weeks to talk about this issue;.....But, we got some perspective on it from some talks before we get to the deeper conversation......

"Time for an Awakening" for Sunday 05/17/2020 at 7:00 PM guests was Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, Economics, and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University, Dr. William A. (Sandy) Darity Jr. The conversation centered around the book " From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans  in the 21st Century", by Dr. Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen, and a blueprint to achieve reparations for the enslavement of our ancestors and the existing damage to our people.

"Time for an Awakening" for Sunday 05/17/2020 at 7:00 PM guests was Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, Economics, and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University, Dr. William A. (Sandy) Darity Jr. The conversation centered around the book " From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans  in the 21st Century", by Dr. Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen, and a blueprint to achieve reparations for the enslavement of our ancestors and the existing damage to our people.

In this episode we discuss Reparations with Dr. William A. Darity Jr. He is a Professor of Public Policy in the Sanford School at Duke University; also a professor of African and African American Studies, and Economics, and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity.

New to Ways and Means in Season 5: Short Takes. Short-form bonus interview content featuring the subjects of this season's episodes. Deondra Rose, Research Director for Polis, Duke University's Center for Politics, sits down with Prof. Sandy Darity for a continued discussion of reparations. Topics include the Reparations Planning Committee, the role of educational institutions in reparations policy, and arguments that make it hard for Sandy to stay professional.  This season of Ways & Means is supported by Polis, the Center for Politics at Duke University. 

In this conversation, Philip spends time with Prof. Sandy Darity, the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics at Duke University. Prof. Darity is one of the foremost experts on the Black wealth gap and reparations and he and Philip discuss the economic and historical case for reparations and its effect on the trajectory of the country. Prof. Darity holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has published or edited 13 books and more than 250 articles in professional journals. His newest book coauthored with Kirsten Mullen, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century, is forthcoming in 2020 from the University of North Carolina Press. The Drop – The segment of the show where both Philip and his guest share tasty morsels of intellectual goodness and creative musings. Philip's Drop: The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K. Le GuinProf. Darity's Drop:The Black Jacobins – C.L.R JamesCapitalism & Slavery - Eric Williams Black Reconstruction In America – W.E.B Dubois

Juneteenth, which is celebrated on June 19th, recognizes the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, and the official conclusion of the Civil War on May 13, 1865. This celebration date results from the arrival of General Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, and announced to the inhabitants that slavery had ended. June 19th became the symbolic day for the celebration of the end of slavery following celebrations which began in Texas in 1866. As a holiday, Juneteenth is now celebrated in forty-five State and in the District of Columbia. Slavery exacted a tremendous toll on enslaved Africans and upon their descendants. For generations, Africans were forced to provide free labor for Whites and were subjected to the most brutal and degrading treatment imaginable. An increasing number of people have joined in efforts to demand Reparations for the many years of forced labor endured by the ancestors of African Americans. Many also advocate for compensation for the official sanctioned oppression and dehumanization which were inflicted upon African Americans during the “Jim Crow” era, which lasted from the late 1890s up until 1970s. By every measure, the impacts of slavery and “Jim Crow” continue to negatively impact African Americans and are the principal causes of the huge wealth gap which presently exists in the United States between Africa Americans and whites. On this show, we discussed Juneteenth and Reparations with Dr. Sandy Darity, the Director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University and Dr. Keisha Bentley-Edwards, an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Duke University and the Research Director at the Cook Center for Social Equity.

Juneteenth, which is celebrated on June 19th, recognizes the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, and the official conclusion of the Civil War on May 13, 1865. This celebration date results from the arrival of General Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, and announced to the inhabitants that slavery had ended. June 19th became the symbolic day for the celebration of the end of slavery following celebrations which began in Texas in 1866. As a holiday, Juneteenth is now celebrated in forty-five State and in the District of Columbia. Slavery exacted a tremendous toll on enslaved Africans and upon their descendants. For generations, Africans were forced to provide free labor for Whites and were subjected to the most brutal and degrading treatment imaginable. An increasing number of people have joined in efforts to demand Reparations for the many years of forced labor endured by the ancestors of African Americans. Many also advocate for compensation for the official sanctioned oppression and dehumanization which were inflicted upon African Americans during the “Jim Crow” era, which lasted from the late 1890s up until 1970s. By every measure, the impacts of slavery and “Jim Crow” continue to negatively impact African Americans and are the principal causes of the huge wealth gap which presently exists in the United States between Africa Americans and whites. On this show, we discussed Juneteenth and Reparations with Dr. Sandy Darity, the Director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University and Dr. Keisha Bentley-Edwards, an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Duke University and the Research Director at the Cook Center for Social Equity.

Professor William A. Darity, Jr. also known as 'Sandy' is an American economist and researcher. He is currently the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. Darity maintains that people are out of work in the US not because of personal defects but because the economy doesn’t generate enough jobs. He tells Steve why we need a federal job guarantee, covering the 5 main points from the Jacobin article of that name which he co-authored with Mark Paul and Darrick Hamilton. He also shows how the FJG is superior to a universal basic income. This interview is as important today as it was when it was first aired in 2017.   https://sanford.duke.edu/people/faculty/darity-jr-william

William "Sandy" Darity, economist from Duke University, explains why America needs a federal job guarantee and not a universal basic income. The FJG will address inequality, build an inclusive, stable economy, and provide socially useful services, improving the quality of life for all communities.

Go to http://patreon.com/champagnesharks to become a Patreon subscriber for $5/month and get early access to free episodes and access to over 70 archived subscriber-only episodes not available on the main, free feed. We discuss some of the recent political shenanigans going on going into the 2020 elections. Mentioned in this episode: #OscarsSoWhite’s April Reign’s former life as government lawyer April Sands, “FEC lawyer used government job to campaign for Obama, investigation shows” https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/29/investigation-fec-lawyer-used-government-job-campa/ Daily Mail’s article on April Sands troubles: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2692218/Another-recycled-hard-drive-Former-Lois-Lerner-deputy-prosecuted-fundraising-Democrats-job-FEC-destroyed-evidence.html Fox News’s coverage of April Sands and Lois Lerner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ8eJMdqDDo The January 5, 2016 decision where April Sands ends up getting her legal license suspended https://www.leagle.com/decision/inmdco20160105176 and Maryland Court system’s record of the suspension https://mdcourts.gov/sites/default/files/import/attygrievance/pdfs/sanctionsFY16.pdf Two of the many puff pieces, seemingly written by other Blavity Blacks, about April Reign, the former April Sands, one in Huffington Post https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/april-reign-oscarssowhite_us_56d21088e4b03260bf771018 and the other in LA Times https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-april-reign-oscars-so-white-20180123-story.html Terrell Starr’s argument with Lexi Alexander https://twitter.com/Lexialex/status/1100384318629638145 Jason Johnson’s argument with Josh Olson https://twitter.com/joshuarolson/status/1100539753760546816 “Black Critics of Kamala Harris and Cory Booker Push Back Against Claims That They’re Russian “Bots”” https://theintercept.com/2019/02/13/ados-kamala-harris-cory-booker-russian-bots/ The Key & Peele skit we mentioned https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EtalOOS-eM “Ferguson Activists Are Being Lynched One By One And Nobody Is Talking About It” https://www.panafricanalliance.com/ferguson-activists-being-murdered/   Symone Sanders giving her ilk and The Root credit for bringing the reparations discussion to the forefront, effectively stealing credit from Sandy Darity, Yvette Carnell, and Antonio Moore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb4UT6HJm7s Tim Dillon on the Unfunny Mafia https://twitter.com/TimJDillon/status/1080312277390245888

Go to http://patreon.com/champagnesharks to become a Patreon subscriber for $5/month and get early access to free episodes and access to over 70 archived subscriber-only episodes not available on the main, free feed. We discuss some of the recent political shenanigans going on going into the 2020 elections. Mentioned in this episode: #OscarsSoWhite's April Reign's former life as government lawyer April Sands, "FEC lawyer used government job to campaign for Obama, investigation shows" https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/29/investigation-fec-lawyer-used-government-job-campa/ Daily Mail's article on April Sands troubles: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2692218/Another-recycled-hard-drive-Former-Lois-Lerner-deputy-prosecuted-fundraising-Democrats-job-FEC-destroyed-evidence.html Fox News's coverage of April Sands and Lois Lerner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ8eJMdqDDo The January 5, 2016 decision where April Sands ends up getting her legal license suspended https://www.leagle.com/decision/inmdco20160105176 and Maryland Court system's record of the suspension https://mdcourts.gov/sites/default/files/import/attygrievance/pdfs/sanctionsFY16.pdf Two of the many puff pieces, seemingly written by other Blavity Blacks, about April Reign, the former April Sands, one in Huffington Post https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/april-reign-oscarssowhite_us_56d21088e4b03260bf771018 and the other in LA Times https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-april-reign-oscars-so-white-20180123-story.html Terrell Starr's argument with Lexi Alexander https://twitter.com/Lexialex/status/1100384318629638145 Jason Johnson's argument with Josh Olson https://twitter.com/joshuarolson/status/1100539753760546816 "Black Critics of Kamala Harris and Cory Booker Push Back Against Claims That They're Russian “Bots”" https://theintercept.com/2019/02/13/ados-kamala-harris-cory-booker-russian-bots/ The Key & Peele skit we mentioned https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EtalOOS-eM "Ferguson Activists Are Being Lynched One By One And Nobody Is Talking About It" https://www.panafricanalliance.com/ferguson-activists-being-murdered/   Symone Sanders giving her ilk and The Root credit for bringing the reparations discussion to the forefront, effectively stealing credit from Sandy Darity, Yvette Carnell, and Antonio Moore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb4UT6HJm7s Tim Dillon on the Unfunny Mafia https://twitter.com/TimJDillon/status/1080312277390245888

Here’s something to consider: For families in which the lead earner has a college degree, the average white family has $180,500 in wealth. The average black family? $23,400. That’s a difference of almost $160,000 — $160,000 that could be used to send a kid to college, get through an illness, start a small business, or make a down payment on a home that builds wealth for the next generation, too. Sandy Darity is an economist at Duke University, and much of his work has focused on the racial wealth gap, and how to close it. He’s a pioneer of “stratification economics” — a branch of study that takes groups seriously as economic units, and thinks hard about how group incentives change our behavior and drive our decisions. In this podcast, we talk about stratification economics, as well as Darity’s idea of “baby bonds”: assets that would build to give poor children up to $50,000 in wealth by the time they become adults, which would in turn give them a chance to invest in themselves or their future the same way children from richer families do. Think of it as a plan for universal basic wealth — and people are listening: Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), a past guest on this show, recently released a plan to closely tracked Darity’s proposal. I know, I know, the election is in a day. But right now, we don’t know who will win. So how about spending some time thinking about what someone who actually wanted to ease problems like wealth inequality could do if they did have power? Recommended books: Caste, Class, and Race by Oliver Cox Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams Black Reconstruction in America by W.E.B. DuBois Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Joe, Scarlet and Julie spoke with Greg Valliere, Horizon Investments Chief Global Strategist, about the feud that he has been warning for months was inevitable: President Trump versus the Fed. Greg pointed out the irony: President Trump now wants a dovish Fed Chair. But, the President already had one. He fired her. Then Bloomberg Opinion Columnist Nathanial Bullard joined to discuss the Trump administration's latest environmental regulation rollback: revoking California's authority to set their own greenhouse gas emission standards. Sandy Darity, a professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, also joined to make the case for a federal jobs guarantee, and said even he is surprised at how much the policy idea is catching on.

Vox's Dylan Matthews joins Sarah and Matt to break down the jobs guarantee debate and discuss research on a promising school desegregation initiative undermined by racist police practices. References and further reading Dylan's jobs guarantee explainer (with links to Stephanie Kelton's writing) Dylan's explainer of Sen. Cory Booker's jobs guarantee proposal (with links to Darrick Hamilton and Sandy Darity's writing) Bryce Covert's piece on the case for a jobs guarantee Gallup poll on workers getting a sense of identity from their jobs White paper on school integration "risks and benefits" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Attorney Antonio Moore discusses the new report he released with Sandy Darity, and several other noted economist on the myths around the racial wealth gap. Full report https://d.pr/f/ato4pNFortune http://fortune.com/2018/04/16/racial-inequality-wealth-gap-black-african-americans/ The two dig into everything from the #blackbank movement, to black celebrity as a decadent veil. They also discuss Claud Anderson, and Boyce Watkins respective economic approaches for black America.

We're back, baybeeeee! In Season Three of Bad With Money, we'll be going even harder against the American financial system than we did in Season Two (so, uh...hope you enjoyed that?). And for our season premiere, we're jumping right into the deep end, and talking about that thing too many white people are afraid to talk about: structural racism. Gaby's guests share some hard truths about the massive wealth and achievement gap faced by Black people in the US - and also offer some strikingly reasonable potential solutions. Featuring Tricia Rose, Prudence Carter, Sandy Darity, Lisa Sturtevant, and Stephanie Killian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesOur Sponsors:* Check out Arena Club: arenaclub.com/badmoney* Check out Chime: chime.com/BADMONEY* Check out Claritin: www.claritin.com* Check out Indeed: indeed.com/BADWITHMONEY* Check out Monarch Money: monarchmoney.com/BADMONEY* Check out NetSuite: NetSuite.com/BADWITHMONEYAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We're back, baybeeeee! In Season Three of Bad With Money, we'll be going even harder against the American financial system than we did in Season Two (so, uh...hope you enjoyed that?). And for our season premiere, we're jumping right into the deep end, and talking about that thing too many white people are afraid to talk about: structural racism. Gaby's guests share some hard truths about the massive wealth and achievement gap faced by Black people in the US - and also offer some strikingly reasonable potential solutions. Featuring Tricia Rose, Prudence Carter, Sandy Darity, Lisa Sturtevant, and Stephanie Killian.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, William A. (“Sandy”) Darity, Jr. joins Christina and Ekemini at the table. Dr. Darity is the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics at Duke University. He is the founding director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, and he has served as chair of Duke’s Department of African and African American Studies. Darity’s research focuses on inequality by race, class and ethnicity, stratification economics, schooling and the racial achievement gap, North-South theories of trade and development, skin shade and labor market outcomes, the economics of reparations, the Atlantic slave trade and the Industrial Revolution, the history of economics, and the social psychological effects of exposure to unemployment. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation (2015-2016), a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (2011-2012) at Stanford University, a fellow at the National Humanities Center (1989-90) and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors (1984). He received the Samuel Z. Westerfield Award in 2012 from the National Economic Association, the organization's highest honor. In 2017, he was named to the Politico 50 list of the most influential policy thinkers over the course of the past year, and he also was honored by the Center for Global Policy Solutions with an award recognizing his work in the development of the effort to study and reverse racial wealth disparities in the United States. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has published or edited 13 books and more than 220 articles in professional journals. His most recent book is the 2017 publication, For-Profit Universities: The Shifting Landscape of Marketized Education, co-edited with Tressie McMillan Cottom. Pull up a chair as Sandy lays out the case for reparations within the context of the United States. Follow Sandy on Twitter: @SandyDarity Hosts: Michelle Higgins (twitter.com/AfroRising) Christina Edmondson (twitter.com/DrCEdmondson) Ekemini Uwan (twitter.com/sista_theology) Producer: Joshua Heath (twitter.com/J_DotMusic4) Executive Producer: Beau York (twitter.com/TheRealBeauYork) Special Thanks To: The Witness: A Black Christian Collective - www.TheWitnessBCC.com (twitter.com/TheWitnessBCC) Podastery - www.podastery.com (twitter.com/Podastery)

In advance of Labor Day, Sandy Darity, Darrick Hamilton, and Mark Paul join Jared and Ben to talk about their bold proposal to transform the labor market: a federal job guarantee. It would have the potential to reap huge rewards in terms of eliminating involuntary unemployment, reducing poverty, improving job quality, and allocating resources to address national needs. Musical Interlude: “Done Changed My Way of Living” by Taj Mahal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqEZXra3keU Ben’s Podcast Recommendation: “Have You Heard” by Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider https://soundcloud.com/haveyouheardpodcast Jared’s Podcast Recommendation: “The Daily” by Michael Barbaro https://www.nytimes.com/podcasts/the-daily

Come to the first-ever LIVE taping of the Scholars Strategy Network’s podcast, No Jargon. To celebrate No Jargon’s 100th episode, Avi will be joined by researchers from across the country to talk about America’s divided politics, how we got here, and what comes next. Buy tickets at scholars.org/liveshow. In three acts, Avi and his guests will explore our nation’s politics today, and then zoom in on battleground North Carolina and bright blue Massachusetts. Audience members will have the chance to ask the researchers their own questions. Guests for the show include: Sandy Darity, René Flores, Erin O’Brien, Gunther Peck, Theda Skocpol, and Peter Ubertaccio.

"The Metrics of Black Wealth" Guest: Dr. William A. (“Sandy”) Darity, Jr., Ph.D. Dr. Darity is the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy,African and African American Studies, and Economics and the director of the Duke Consortium on Social Equity at Duke University. WE can't save, educate or job income ourselves out of the economic and financial history from which our poverty springs. BROADCASTING BOLD BRAVE & BLACK   Join us on FACEBOOK   OCG on the Web: http://ourcommonground.com/ Community Forum: http://www.ourcommonground-talk.ning.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @JaniceOCG   #TalkthatMatters