Stephen Kinzer in The Boston Globe, "Biden has a chance to end the longstanding practice of handing out ambassadorships as political rewards. The temptation to continue, however, is strong. Biden is unlikely to resist it any more successfully than his predecessors."
Jeff Cogan provided commentary in this article, which also cites the Climate Solutions Lab at Watson: "There's so much that a federal government can do on climate change across the various agencies, not just at the state department, or the Treasury or the Environmental Protection Agency, or the Federal Reserve, at all of them...We should not forget how powerful the president can be."
Emily Oster said she is surprised to hear that the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is relying on the Covid-19 School Response Dashboard, a website she started to promote in-person learning for schoolchildren.
Stephen Kinzer in The Christian Science Monitor, "To this day I remember looking at people's blank faces in Turku and [Estonia's capital,] Tallinn. Even for those of us not directly affected, it was a traumatic episode to live through. It's engraved in my memory forever."
Emily Oster penned this column arguing that the best available data suggests that infection rates in schools simply mirror the prevalence of COVID-19 in the surrounding community — and that addressing community spread is where our efforts should be focused.
This article cites Watson's Costs of War Report, "...Has monitored the economic and medical costs of both wars for years. It estimates that the United States will have spent more than $6.4 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when lifetime medical needs for the veterans who served there are included."
Rose McDermott is quoted and cited in this article, which focuses on her argument that the advent of computers, the internet and social media have yielded massive change in the design and execution of certain types of large field experiments.
In this interview, Emily Oster says priorities need to shift, because data doesn't show that schools are a primary source of COVID-19 outbreaks or broad community spread.
Emily Oster penned this column arguing that Americans need to start thinking about how to control the pandemic under the assumption that people are not necessarily going to listen.
In this opinion piece, Rob Blair writes "The good news is that Trump's efforts are unlikely to succeed in changing the outcome of the election. Still, his refusal to accept defeat can do serious lasting harm."
Andrew Schrank penned this article on why one of President-elect Biden's first legislative priorities should be a substantial increase in the federal minimum wage.
This article reflects on a talk given by Wendy Schiller in which she stated, "We are a long-standing democracy that has experienced its share of disputed elections and upheaval, [and] we will once again endure."
Wendy Schiller in The Guardian, "I think he understands what his job is. It's not going to be to pass sweeping legislation – this is no FDR or Lyndon Johnson. This is a guy trying to get us back on track to some sort of normalcy in governance...That's Biden's job, and anybody who's expecting any grand legislative measures is just living in fantasyland."