PolicyCast

The Ghost Budget: How U.S. war spending went rogue, wasted billions, and how to fix it

HKS Senior Lecturer Linda Bilmes, an expert on public finance who has studied post-9/11 war costs for the past 20 years, says their staggering $5 trillion cost was enabled by what she calls “The Ghost Budget.” Using an unprecedented combination...

The Great Creep Backward: Policy responses to China’s slowing economy

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Rana Mitter and Harvard Business School Associate Professor Meg Rithmire say that after decades of tremendous growth, an economically slowing China is the new normal. With a growing debt-to-GDP ratio, an aging population, a devastating real...

Two peoples. Two states. Why U.S. diplomacy in Israel and Palestine needs vision, partners, and a backbone

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Ed Djerejian says Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin once told him “There is no military solution to this conflict, only a political one.” Rabin was assassinated a few years later and today bullets are flying,...

We can productively discuss even the toughest topics—here’s how

As our discourse and our politics have become both more polarized and paralyzed, Harvard Kennedy School faculty members Erica Chenoweth and Julia Minson say we need to refocus on listening to understand, instead of talking to win. In mid-2022, the...

The document that redefined humanity: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 75

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Kathryn Sikkink and former longtime Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth have spent years studying the transformational effects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and have worked on the ground to make its vision...

Legacy of privilege: David Deming and Raj Chetty on how elite college admissions policies affect who gains power and prestige

Legacy admissions, particularly at elite colleges and universities, were thrust into the spotlight this summer when the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended affirmative action in admissions. The ruling raised many questions, and fortunately, Harvard Kennedy School Professor David Deming and...

Need to solve an intractable problem? Try collaborative governing

Harvard Kennedy School faculty member Jorrit de Jong and Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmondson say the big, intractable problems challenges facing city leaders today are too complex to be addressed by any one agency or government department. Complex challenges...

How to keep "TLDR" syndrome from killing your policy proposal

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Todd Rogers and Lecturer in Public Policy Lauren Brodsky say trying too hard to sound intelligent—even when communicating complex or nuanced ideas—isn't a smart strategy. Because today’s overburdened information consumers are as much skimmers as readers,...

Dr. Rochelle Walensky on making health care policy under fire

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who served as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2021 to 2023, calls the job “probably the hardest thing I will ever do.” But she also calls it “the honor of a...

AI can be democracy’s ally—but not if it works for Big Tech

Kennedy School Lecturer in Public Policy Bruce Schneier says Artificial Intelligence has the potential to transform the democratic process in ways that could be good, bad, and potentially mind-boggling. The important thing, he says, will be to use regulation...

The more Indigenous nations self govern, the more they succeed

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Joseph Kalt and Megan Minoka Hill say the evidence is in: When Native nations make their own decisions about what development approaches to take, studies show they consistently out-perform external decision makers like the U.S. Department...

If you don’t have multiracial democracy, you have no democracy at all

The history of American democracy has always been fraught when it comes to race. Yet no matter how elusive it may be, Harvard Kennedy School professors Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Archon Fung say true multiracial democracy not only remains a...

Why smart infrastructure is a smart investment—for both Democrats and Republicans—in an era of historic public works spending

As the U.S. prepares to spend hundreds of billions on new projects, HKS Professor Stephen Goldsmith says successfully upgrading our infrastructure will not only require spending all that money smartly, but spending it on infrastructure that is itself smart—full of...

Transitioning to clean power without workers absorbing the shock

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Gordon Hanson and Harvard Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability James Stock say an important part of the green energy transition will be mitigating its effects on employment, both in the United States and overseas. Talking...

The rising tide no one’s talking about—finding homes for millions of climate crisis migrants

When it comes to the climate crisis, there’s barely a day that goes by when we don’t hear about rising sea levels and storm-driven tides. But Harvard professors Jaqueline Bhabha and Hannah Teicher say there’s another rising tide that’s not...

Local news is civic infrastructure. And it’s crumbling. Can we save it?

Harvard Kennedy School professors Nancy Gibbs and Tom Patterson say local news is civic infrastructure. And it's crumbling. Like bridges, local news organizations use facts to help people connect with each other over the chasm of partisan political divides. People...

There's groundbreaking new science to help cut methane emissions, but is there the political will?

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Robert Stavins and Professor Daniel Jacob of Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are at the forefront of new efforts to monitor and control methane, a potent greenhouse gas. It used to seem like methane...

Joe Aldy on the complex economics of the clean energy transition

Economist and Harvard Kennedy School Professor Joe Aldy says possibly the most complex—and one of the most existentially important—problems facing humanity is how to pull out the roots of fossil fuel infrastructure that are so deeply embedded in the...

Goals and realities: What World Cup performances can teach us about development in African countries

Matt Andrews, the faculty director of the Building State Capability program at Harvard Kennedy School, says the reasons why African nations haven’t done better at soccer’s world championships have a lot in common with why much of the continent’s economic...

How American cities can prepare for an increasingly destructive climate

Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has a unique perspective on the topic of climate resiliency. He was a city official in 2012 for Superstorm Sandy—which many call the worst disaster in New York City’s history—and in 2021...

Why women are authoritarianism’s targets—and how they can be its undoing

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Erica Chenoweth and Lecturer in Public Policy Zoe Marks say the parallel global trends of rising authoritarianism and attempts to roll back women’s rights are no coincidence. The hard won rights women have attained over the...

Former Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven on stemming the tide of right-wing authoritarianism

During his seven years leading Sweden’s government from 2014 to 2021, Stefan Löfven had a front row seat to observe the rise of right-wing and neo-fascist political parties both at home and around Europe. A former welder, and union leader...

Low-wage and gig workers have it worse than we thought—and why that matters for us all

Eight years ago, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Danny Schneider co-founded The Shift Project, which has built an unprecedented repository of data on scheduling and working conditions for hourly service workers. Analyzing the effects of the pandemic, Schneider says the research...

Data analysis and policy design—not good intentions—will fix healthcare post COVID

The COVID-19 pandemic has stretched the US health care system and health care systems across the world to the breaking point and beyond. If there’s a silver lining, it may be that there is now the urgency and will among...

Values, courage, and how good public leadership can save us

New Center for Public Leadership co-director Deval Patrick ascribes bad leadership as a root cause of many of the huge problems facing human society and the world, including the climate crisis, and threats to democracy and human rights. But are...

He predicted globalization’s failure, now he’s planning what’s next

Summary: For more than a quarter century, economist and Harvard Kennedy School professor Dani Rodrik has been ringing alarm bells about the dangers of globalization. And for a long time, it didn’t seem like a whole lot of people were...

Reform, refugees, and the war next door: President Maia Sandu of Moldova

Maia Sandu has been president of Moldova since December 2020. She is the first woman to be president of the country, and she named fellow Party of Action and Solidarity member Natalia Gavrilița as prime minister, marking the first time...

The pandemic's silver lining—a trove of data on social protection programs

Development economist Rema Hanna sees the thousands of new social protection programs created during the COVID-19 pandemic as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study the best ways to help lift people out of poverty. The Harvard Kennedy School professor tells PolicyCast...

How worldwide outrage over atrocities in Ukraine is fueling a new push for international justice

A mass grave behind a church. Bodies of children and families buried under the rubble of a theater where they had been seeking refuge. Streets littered with bodies of civilians who were shot, hands tied behind their backs. Almost every...

O'Sullivan and Frankel: How the sanctions on Putin's Russia are reshaping the world economic order

Keyssar and Fung: America’s flawed democracy is in deep—and possibly fatal—trouble

Harvard Kennedy School Professors Alex Keyssar and Archon Fung say the U.S. political system, stripped of a consensus belief in democratic principles, is racing down a dangerous road toward political and social upheaval and possible minority rule. American democracy, they...

The U.S. pays reparations every day—just not to Black America

Host Ralph Ranalli is a senior writer and producer at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs, and a veteran journalist, media producer, and entrepreneur. Cornell William Brooks is the Hauser Professor of the Practice of Nonprofit Organizations...

Graham Allison on how China’s rising global power could lead to superpower conflict—or something else.

It takes a lot to impress Professor Graham Allison when it comes to geopolitics. He is, after all, the Cold Warrior’s Cold Warrior—as one of America’s most influential defense policy analysts and advisors, he was twice awarded the Defense Department’s...

Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa on how social media is pushing journalism—and democracy—to the brink

The Nobel Committee has awarded its 2021 Peace Prize to Maria Ressa for being a fearless defender of independent journalism and freedom of expression in the Philippines, and particularly for her work exposing the human rights abuses of authoritarian President...

How our flawed debates about cost prevent us from spending public money wisely

Barely a news cycle goes by these days without someone in public office saying ‘We can’t afford that,’ while at the same time defending their favorite budget priorities and tossing around mind-numbingly large cost figures in the billions and trillions...

Systems Failure: With the climate crisis hitting poor people hardest, David Keith says now is the time to explore solar geoengineering

Leaders from around the globe are meeting in Scotland today for the COP26 summit, talking about ways to speed up efforts to fight global warming. Yet even the optimists in Glasgow admit that the scientific consensus is that it’s already...

Systems Failure: Economist Jason Furman says economic inequality costs everyone

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Jason Furman recently testified before the House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth and called growing inequality the fundamental challenge for the U.S. economy. He says that slow income growth, coupled with growing...

Systems Failure: How to respond when our algorithms are biased and our privacy is in peril

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Latanya Sweeney a pioneer in the fields of algorithmic fairness and data privacy and the founding director of the new Public Interest Tech Lab at Harvard University. The former chief technology officer for the US Trade...

Happiness in an age of fear and grievance

Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School Professor Arthur Brooks studies happiness: Where it comes from, how to achieve it, and how it affects our lives, our decision-making, and the world around us. But how do we define happiness? Is...

Staying Power: Tony Saich on 100 Years of the Chinese Communist Party

The Chinese Communist Party rules a country that is already an economic superpower and is poised to become a military and geopolitical one as the 21st Century unfolds. But Harvard Kennedy School Professor Tony Saich says the party’s 100th birthday...

Between blind faith and denial: Finding a productive approach to merging policy, science, and technology

With a new administration taking power in Washington, many people who had been alarmed by partisan attacks on science and expertise breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that science would be restored to its rightful place in policymaking. But what...

Democracy’s uncertain prospects 10 years after the Arab Spring

Ten years after the rise of the pro-democracy movements collectively dubbed “the Arab Spring” the Arab world is a complicated mix of governments and societies that have evolved in vastly different ways. There have been democratic successes like Tunisia, setbacks...

Joe Aldy on how Joe Biden can jumpstart the global climate effort

Twelve years ago, Aldy was a member of then President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team as it took over from the George W. Bush administration. He says the objective then was much the same as it is now—figuring out how to...

Young voters ascendant: How a generational shift won the 2020 election and could remake American politics

In 2019, the 72-million strong Millennial generation (23-to-38-year-olds) quietly surpassed the Baby Boomers as America’s largest living generational cohort. In the 2020 election, they made their voices heard with a roar. Not only did younger voters—and particularly younger voters of...

Garbage in, garbage out: Dissecting the disinformation that clouds our decisions

All of the choices we make have one thing in common: Our decisions are only as good as the information we have to base them on. And with the rise of disinformation, misinformation, media manipulation, and social media echo chambers,...

The end of Us versus Them policing: The tough road ahead for reform

After the high-profile police killings of Black people like Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and numerous others, polls show a majority of Americans say we need major changes to how police provide public safety. Policymakers and political leaders—under pressure from the...

If the Electoral College is a racist relic, why has it endured?

The one constant in the history of voting rights in America, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Alex Keyssar says, is that no law has ever been passed to restrict the voting rights of upper-middle-class white men. Other than that, he says,...

Championing human rights amid disease and discrimination

Throughout history, governments have seized on catastrophes to seize and consolidate power. Yet official actions like restricting movement, ramping up surveillance, curtailing freedom of assembly, and closing borders can also help control the spread of a deadly pandemic like COVID-19....

A historic crossroads for systemic racism and policing in America

After 400 years of systemic discrimination against black people in America, the volcanic reaction to video of the brutal killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis has pushed America to another major inflection point in its seemingly endless struggle...

No quick or easy answers for the pandemic's toll on developing economies

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Ricardo Hausmann and the Growth Lab COVID-19 Task Force are helping developing countries around the globe develop economic and epidemiological responses to the coronavirus pandemic. Hausmann tells PolicyCast host Thoko Moyo that although some countries are...