Tony Saich and Kunling Zhang, December 2023
Since the 1990s, neo-institutionalists have posited that "institutions matter". However, they overlook one important issue: the ways institutions change also matters. Numerous academic studies have identified "good" and "bad" institutions, but little has been written about effective methods of transforming "bad" institutions so that they enhance economic performance. To fill this gap, this book reframes the approach of neo-institutional economics to analyze institutions' role and evolution, focusing on the interaction between the household registration (hukou) system evolution and economic transformation.
The authors apply an endogenous and dynamic perspective. First, the theory of endogenous institutional change illustrates how the drivers of hukou system evolution differ in the pre-reform and reform eras. Second, the theory of adaptive efficiency evaluates the evolution of the system's institutional efficiency. Finally, the authors were able to test the impact of the hukou reform on urban economic growth by examining local experimentation, helping explain the current "stickiness" of the system.
At the heart of hukou reform lies the question of how to deal with the link between hukou and welfare provision. This book will offer policymakers a better understanding of institutional change in dynamic economic contexts, helping them enhance economic performance.
Bailey Flanigan, Paul Gölz, Ariel Procaccia, November 2023
Deliberative mini-publics convene a panel of randomly selected constituents to deeply engage with complex policy issues. This essay considers the process of selecting the members of this panel, with a particular focus on the central role of randomness in this process. Among other benefits, this random- ness confers legitimacy by affording all members of society some chance of participation. The main constraint placed on this selection process is representativeness—the requirement that the resulting panel accurately reflects the demographic and ideological makeup of the population. Within this constraint, there is a vast space of possible ways to randomly choose a panel, and each method spreads the random chance of selection differently across willing participants. In this essay, we explore approaches for inten- tionally designing this randomness to promote specific goals, such as increasing fairness, transparency, non-manipulability, and richness of representation in mini-publics.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad, October 2023
Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad delivered the 2023 Slomoff Lectureship at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Professor Muhammad's remarks were focused on his forthcoming study examining global justice, truth-telling, and healing work.
Gumporn Supasettaysa, September 2023
Patients frequently travel across international borders to seek health care in Southeast Asia. This practice, known as medical tourism, has grown rapidly in Thailand in recent years. In this Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia policy brief, Gumporn Supasettaysa argues that to take the next step and continue to grow the medical tourism industry, Thailand must expand the partnership between the government and private hospitals to include airports, airlines, and logistics companies, fully supporting the patient journey and providing end-to-end care.
Stephen Goldsmith and Ryan Streeter, September 2023
In this working paper, Stephen Goldsmith and Ryan Streeter argue that the Republican Party is philosophically adrift, and it has been for a while. This is not only bad for the Party’s political future but bad for the country and its democracy by depriving voters of meaningful choice in ideas, they argue. The United States’ socioeconomic progress over the past 250 years, however uneven, can be attributed to the interplay of competing ideas on how to achieve progress. Central to the competition is how we understand individual rights and responsibilities, fairness and justice, and the definition of progress itself. When our political parties lose their ability to articulate governing principles and resort instead to defining themselves as the opposite of their enemies, the competition of ideas stagnates—and so does the condition of the country.
Goldsmith and Streeter describe an alternative ideological path, aspirational conservatism, which is populist in spirit while rejecting the view that American institutions no longer offer upward mobility for ordinary individuals. It is pro-opportunity for grassroots doers and makers, such as shop owners, small-scale entrepreneurs, and new business owners with aspirations to grow. It is pro-worker in its focus on boosting wages by modernizing training, increasing access to the fastest-growing sectors for skilled work, and removing job barriers that have accrued over time. Additionally, it strikes a healthy balance by upholding the character and values inherent in American institutions and celebrating the diverse viewpoints and lifestyles that share those core values.
The authors make the case for conservative governance that is respectful of its citizens, supportive of America’s underlying values, mindful that significant challenges remain, and aware that good politics and good policy require an effective government that helps individuals achieve their aspirations.
Edward Cunningham and Yunxin Li, August 2023
This report on elite philanthropy presents the latest findings from the Harvard Kennedy School Rajawali Foundation Institute’s China Philanthropy Project and provides insight into current trends among China’s major donors and recipients.
The China Philanthropy Project research team reviewed reports and articles covering over 7,000 foundations, over 1,200 charitable organizations, and nearly 3,000 universities in China. Throughout this process, they collected data on more than 17,000 donations made in 2020, accounting for 44 percent of China’s total estimated national giving. In the report, they then focus on the nearly 6,000 donations valued over RMB 1 million (USD $0.14 million), resulting in over 4,000 unique donors analyzed.
Börje Ljunggren and Dwight Perkins, June 2023
In the late 1980s, most of the world still associated Vietnam with resistance and war, hardship, refugees, and a mismanaged planned economy. During the 1990s, by contrast, major countries began to see Vietnam as both a potential partner and a strategically significant actor—particularly in the competition between the United States and an emerging China—and international investors began to see Vietnam as a land of opportunity.
Vietnam remains a Leninist party-state ruled by the Communist Party of Vietnam that has reconciled the supposedly irreconcilable: a one-party system and a market-based economy linked to global value chains. For the Party stability is crucial and, recently, increasing economic openness has been combined with growing political control and repression.
This book, undertaken by scholars from Vietnam, North America, and Europe, focuses on how the country’s governance shapes its politics, economy, social development, and relations with the outside world, as well as on the reforms required if Vietnam is to become a sustainable and modern high-income nation in the coming decades.
Despite the challenges, including systemic ones, the authors remain optimistic about Vietnam’s future, noting the evident vitality of a determined society.
Edward Cunningham and Yunxin Li, March 2023
This annual report highlights leading results from the most recent data analysis of the Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center’s China Philanthropy Project. Our team gathered 2019 data on over 20,000 donations from 7,166 foundations, 1,220 charitable organizations, and 2,597 universities in China. To focus on elite giving, we further refined our analysis to 4,434 donations of over RMB 1 million (US$0.14 million), given by 4,070 unique donors. The resulting report on top individual, corporate, and organizational philanthropy provides an important view into current trends among China’s major donors and recipients.
In 2019, elite Chinese giving:
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was dominated by large organizations (most commonly corporations) rather than individuals,
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supported in large part central government policy priorities in the areas of education and poverty alleviation, and
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remained fairly local in scope.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Angel Rodriguez, March 2023
COVID-19 and the 2020 wave of racial justice demonstrations in the United States moved many healthcare organizations to enact antiracist change goals. Yet, many of these commitments lacked effective strategies and accountability mechanisms.
IARA conducted a one-year study of existing antiracist interventions in healthcare organizations and a review of authoritative evidence for institutional accountability.
Key Findings:
IARA’s pioneering case studies indicate five key organizational levers necessary to close racial disparities in healthcare outcomes and produce long-term sustainable institutional transformation:
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Buy-in and continued engagement from leadership
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A shared understanding and use of explicit language to define structural racism
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Effective organizational infrastructure
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Clearly defined metrics
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Building internal capacity and professional development
Bruce Schneier, February 2023
It’s not just computers—hacking is everywhere.
Legendary cybersecurity expert and New York Times best-selling author Bruce Schneier reveals how using a hacker’s mindset can change how you think about your life and the world.
A hack is any means of subverting a system’s rules in unintended ways. The tax code isn’t computer code, but a series of complex formulas. It has vulnerabilities; we call them “loopholes.” We call exploits “tax avoidance strategies.” And there is an entire industry of “black hat” hackers intent on finding exploitable loopholes in the tax code. We call them accountants and tax attorneys.
In A Hacker’s Mind, Bruce Schneier takes hacking out of the world of computing and uses it to analyze the systems that underpin our society: from tax laws to financial markets to politics. He reveals an array of powerful actors whose hacks bend our economic, political, and legal systems to their advantage, at the expense of everyone else.
Once you learn how to notice hacks, you’ll start seeing them everywhere—and you’ll never look at the world the same way again. Almost all systems have loopholes, and this is by design. Because if you can take advantage of them, the rules no longer apply to you.
Unchecked, these hacks threaten to upend our financial markets, weaken our democracy, and even affect the way we think. And when artificial intelligence starts thinking like a hacker—at inhuman speed and scale—the results could be catastrophic.
But for those who would don the “white hat,” we can understand the hacking mindset and rebuild our economic, political, and legal systems to counter those who would exploit our society. And we can harness artificial intelligence to improve existing systems, predict and defend against hacks, and realize a more equitable world.