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		MIT News: Clare Balboni on the role of economics in understanding environmental issues Clare Balboni, 3M Career Development Assistant Professor of Environmental Economics, speaks with MIT News for their ongoing series, "Solving Climate: Humanistic Perspectives from MIT." Balboni, who works at the intersection of environmental, trade, and development economics, discusses the growing use of economic models and methods to understand environmental issues and shape related policy, as well as growing interest in environmental questions within the field of economics.

		Sandy, furry friend of our own Sara Ellison, is MITAC's pet of the week! Congrats to Sandy and Sara on this lighthearted good news as we head in to the weekend!

		MIT News: George Shultz PhD '49, renowned statesman and former professor, dies at 100 MIT Economics remembers distinguished alumnus George P. Shultz, former U.S. secretary of labor, state, and of the treasury. Shultz, who received his PhD in industrial economics at MIT in 1949, also taught as an assistant, and then associate, professor in the Department of Economics and the Sloan School of Management. Shultz maintained a strong affiliation with MIT and the department throughout his life, and is pictured above with Robert Solow, professor emeritus of economics, following an MIT Energy Initiative lecture in 2008. As MIT President L. Rafael Reif says in MIT News, "We will remember Secretary Shultz for the boundless energy, piercing clarity, and innovative ideas he brought to every role and every conversation. And we are profoundly grateful for the eloquence of his example: a life lived in service to the common good."

		MIT News: Parag Pathak and colleagues on building equity into vaccine distribution Since early 2020, Class of 1922 Professor of Economics Parag Pathak has been considering resource allocation in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Starting with ventilators, and moving to therapeutics and vaccines, Pathak and colleagues have developed a "reserve system" for distribution of essential Covid-19 relief. In the context of vaccines, the system allows prioritization of groups like medical workers and seniors, while also scaling up distribution to disadvantaged communities that have been especially hard-hit by the pandemic.

		Esther Duflo named chair of French Fund for Innovation in Development Esther Duflo, Nobel laureate and Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics, will chair a new Fund for Innovation, hosted by the French Development Agency. Duflo and other founders hope that The Fonds d'Innovation pour le Developpement or FID will transform the country's approach to aid, through a stronger focus on impact and funding opportunities for a broader range of researchers and organizations.

		Amy Finkelstein: Why it's so hard to cut waste in health care During the pandemic, the U.S. has seen a significant decrease in overall health care spending, due to a steep reduction in essential and nonessential medical care that isn't related to Covid-19. Writing for The New York Times, John and Jennie S. MacDonald Professor of Economics Amy Finkelstein considers the implications and a related, broader challenge for health care policy: how can we lower spending on unnecessary health care without also reducing essential care?

		Daron Acemoglu on the current state of democracy in the U.S. Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu talks with MIT News about the country's current political condition and the future of American democracy in light of the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on January 6 and the number of GOP members of Congress who voted not to certify the presidential election results.

		James Poterba named 2021 American Finance Association fellow Mitsui Professor of Economics James Poterba was selected as the 2021 Fellow of the American Finance Association (AFA), recognizing his distinguished contributions to the field of finance. The AFA elects one fellow each year, based on members' nominations and a vote of the current fellows. Poterba joins several other MIT faculty members- Bengt Holmstrom, Robert Merton, Stewart Myers, and the late Stephen Ross and Paul Samuelson- in the AFA Society of Fellows.

		MIT News: Can mammogram screening be more effective? MIT News highlights research co-authored by John and Jennie S. MacDonald Professor of Economics Amy Finkelstein and economics PhD candidate Abby Ostriker. "Screening and Selection: The Case of Mammograms," recently published in American Economic Review, suggests that targeting breast cancer screenings to high-risk groups could be more effective than recommendations based on age. As Finkelstein, Ostriker, and their co-authors note, considerations of the costs and benefits of age-based guidance often overlook the fact that healthier women are more likely to follow recommendations for early screening. This work is has the potential to benefit ongoing policy discussions related to screenings for breast cancer, as well as a range of other diseases.

		MIT News: A better kind of cybersecurity strategy MIT News features Professor Alexander Wolitzky's research on deterrence when attacks cannot be perfectly attributed to attackers, as applied to cybersecurity. "Deterrence with Imperfect Attribution," recently published in American Political Science Review, examines scenarios in which countries are aware of cyberattacks against them but lack full information about the attackers. Wolitzky and his co-authors determine that cyberdeterrence requires a markedly different approach than conventional or nuclear deterrence, and suggest that a strategic and well-informed use of selective retaliation is more effective than retaliating too quickly or too often on the basis of limited information.

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