After the COVID-19 pandemic, criticism regarding the Federal Reserve’s forecasting capabilities of economic variables has increased. From Wall Street CEOs like Jamie Dimon to think tanks like The Hoover Institution, the consensus has been that the Fed’s human and institutional errors not only create inaccurate forecasts but that these forecasts lead to bad monetary policy.
Article by Georgia Dietz. COVID-19 defined 2020 due to the mass health pandemic; however, the grim impact of COVID-19 on mental health has received less attention. Recent work has demonstrated the disparate economic effects of COVID-19 across income groups, where those of lower socioeconomic status face more difficulties with employment and food security. Such
Article by Maya Shah. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, California health experts have worried about the twindemic — the overlap of increasing Covid-19 cases and a severe flu season. If the twindemic were to occur, the already stressed healthcare system would be further overwhelmed, especially in hard-hit states like California where ICU
Article by Caroline Houghton. The entire world saw uncertainty at an unprecedented level in 2020 due to COVID-19. Universities, workplaces, shopping malls, and many other popular locations closed as people all over the world quarantined in their homes. Uncertainty related to COVID-19 and how long it would impact our lives led to high volatility
Article by Georgia Dietz and Leo Kitchell “No Mask, No Service” has become a common, and polarizing, refrain across America. News outlets have been quick to discuss the impact of partisan ideology and racial identity on Americans’ willingness to wear face coverings, yet new analysis from the Lowe Institute finds that popular narratives surrounding race
Among the many negative impacts that COVID-19 has had on health, the economy, and social well-being there has been one well-documented silver lining. As states and whole countries issue stay-at-home orders, air quality has increased markedly. In California, which is home to 10 of the 25 U.S. cities with the worst levels of air pollution,
California counties are becoming more diverse, but not uniformly across the state. Data visualization by student researchers at the Lowe Institute illustrates the geographic heterogeneity in the rapidity of this process. The increasing prevalence of Hispanics in the agricultural central valley and Asians in the Bay Area, the early diversity of the Los Angeles area,
In this article we examine Prohibition’s legacy to understand the 115 U.S. counties that remain dry to this day. 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of prohibition. Enshrined as the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, the law prohibited the production, sale, and transport of alcohol within the United States. Originally promoted by the
The absence of an appropriation bill enacted the Antideficiency Act which forces non-essential government operations, including the National Parks Service, to stop during the shutdown. The National Parks Conservation Association reports the Department of the Interior were able to employ just under 3,300 of the 20,000 NPS employees as “essential staff” to keep National Parks
How Accessible is the Ladder in Your Neighborhood? In March of 2018, economists from Stanford and Harvard teamed-up with the U.S. Census Bureau to produce a longitudinal study investigating the relationship between race and economic opportunity in the United States. By tying de-identified IRS tax returns to Census Bureau data, the researchers were able to
