Economics | Penn Today

Stockton’s basic-income experiment pays off

Research by Amy Castro Baker of the School of Social Policy & Practice found that guaranteed income did not dissuade recipients from working, instead enabling stability and helping people get out of the cycle of poverty.

Where have all the houses gone?

Benjamin Keys of the Wharton School spoke about the pandemic’s impact on the housing market. “The supply side is really tricky,” he said. “Who wants to sell a house in the middle of a pandemic? That’s what I keep coming back to. Is this a time you want to open your house up to people walking through it? No, of course not.”

Texas outages shed light on a different kind of infrastructure: Human

Dan Treglia of the School of Social Policy & Practice co-authored an op-ed calling for policymakers to invest in the U.S.’s human infrastructure: economy-sustaining low-wage workers. “Going back to the pre-COVID-19 status quo, in which nearly half of U.S. households and many of our essential workers were already struggling, cannot be the goal,” they wrote. “The recovery needs to restructure our economy so that it prioritizes the economic security, health, and safety of all people.”

Three masked individuals dressed in business attire sit at a desk, one is African American, discussing plans or a possible partnership or investment.

Building diversity into the venture capital ecosystem

A conversation with Wharton’s Stephanie Creary on the institutional roadblocks and funding gaps faced by minority and female founders.

Yard full of standing colorful t-shirts with the names of people killed by guns in black marker written across them.

Regardless of socioeconomic status, Black communities face higher gun homicides

In a Wharton study, chair of the Statistics Department Dylan Small says reasons for the disparity include institutional racism, underinvestment in communities, and housing segregation.

For women in economics, the hostility is out in the open

Ioana Marinescu of the School of Social Policy & Practice spoke about her experiences in giving talks at economics conferences. “The questions were incessant, but they were awesome questions from the top people in the profession,” she said.

Short sellers help stocks find their true values and expose fraud, despite the hate they receive

Sasha Indarte of the Wharton School weighed in on the practice of short selling, which has been sometimes blamed for drops in the stock market. “I think the main reason people dislike short selling is that something just feels bad about profiting from someone else’s failures,” she said. “Short sellers gain when someone else loses. It’s like if you took out an insurance policy against your neighbor’s home, and your neighbor’s home was destroyed.”

The sometimes-fuzzy $400,000 threshold in Biden’s tax plan

John Ricco of the Penn Wharton Budget Model weighed in on President Biden’s campaign promise that those making under $400,000 a year would not see any federal tax increases. “Our reading of the campaign tax pledge was that the $400,000 cutoff applied to unmarried and married individuals alike,” said Ricco. “We did not see anything that suggested it would vary based on marital status.”

Heart monitor in a hospital room, a patient in a hospital bed behind it.

Where the economy falters, deaths from heart disease rise

A new study finds that the diverging economic fortunes of different parts of the country is linked to differing death rates from heart disease and stroke among middle-aged Americans.

Sadie T.M. Alexander in a graduaction cap and gown.

Honoring the life and legacy of a trailblazing civil rights activist

Penn Law is paying tribute to the legacy of Sadie T.M. Alexander, the first Black woman to graduate from the Law School, by launching three new full tuition scholarships created in her honor.

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