“Unintended Consequences provides a provocative interpretation of the causes of the global financial crisis and the policies needed to return to rapid growth. Whether you agree or not, this analysis is well worth reading.” - Nouriel Roubini, New York University; Chairman, Roubini Global Economics
“Unintended Consequences offers deep and well-argued analyses on almost every issue.” - The New York Times
“…a fresh argument for the productive value of inequality.” - David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“…a very valuable contribution.” - Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and director of the National Economic Council, president emeritus, Harvard University
“…serious thinking for serious thinkers. …a thought-provoking blueprint for growing middle- and working-class incomes.” - Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
“…challenges misconceptions that distort our economic debates.” - Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute
“…a very valuable contribution.” - Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and director of the National Economic Council, president emeritus, Harvard University
“Unintended Consequences is far smarter and more thought-provoking than most economics written for the general public” - Greg Mankiw, Harvard University, Former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors
“…a must-read for serious students of economic policy.” - Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia Business School, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
“…reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking.” - Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group, former Director of the National Economic Council
“There are an amazing number of good ideas and interesting points made in Unintended Consequences. The thinking underlying it, and the obvious depth of understanding of the author, are very impressive.” - Steven Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics; 2004 John Bates Clark Medal
“Unintended Consequences is full of substance, it is one of the must-read books of the year, and once I finish it I will be giving it a second read through right away.” - Tyler Cowen, Professor, George Mason University

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An Intensive, School-Based Learning Camp Targeting Academic and Non-Cognitive Skills Evaluated in a Randomized Trial

Charlotte Hvidman Institute of Labor Economics

Date Posted:: January 10, 2022
Is Database:: Database

A randomized trial of an intensive learning camp for underperforming Danish students found no lasting effects on academic or non-cognitive skills.

The evaluation of an intensive learning camp for underperforming Danish students revealed no evidence of lasting effects on academic or non-cognitive skills. Conducted as a stratified cluster randomized trial with 15,559 pupils across 264 schools, the camp showed small positive short-run effects in math and weak evidence for Danish improvements. However, these gains did not persist, and no significant long-term effects were observed. The camp's main variant, which allocated 30% of time to non-cognitive skills like self-regulation and growth mindsets, failed to enhance academic outcomes or non-cognitive skills. The alternative variant, focusing solely on academic skills, showed similar results, indicating that short-term interventions may not effectively manipulate non-cognitive skills in older pupils. These findings suggest that such interventions in high-resource school systems may not yield the desired long-term educational benefits.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup^® AI

A stratified cluster randomized trial of 15,559 pupils across 264 Danish schools found an intensive learning camp for underperforming students produced small positive short-run math effects and weak evidence of Danish gains, neither of which persisted.
The camp's main variant, which devoted 30% of time to non-cognitive skills such as self-regulation and growth mindsets, failed to improve either academic outcomes or non-cognitive skills.
The academic-only variant of the camp showed results similar to the main variant, suggesting that short-term interventions may not effectively manipulate non-cognitive skills in older pupils.

Core findings, "...We evaluate two variants of a school-based, intensive learning camp for pupils who are assessed `not ready’ for further education after compulsory school, using a stratified cluster randomized trial involving 15,559 pupils in 264 schools in Denmark. Next to training pupils in Danish and mathematics, the main variant targets non-cognitive skills, while the alternative variant instead uses this time for more training in Danish and math. In the short-run, in the academic areas that are targeted in the camp, we find small positive effects in math and weak evidence for positive effects in Danish. Yet, we find no evidence of lasting effects and we do not find short-run effects on non-targeted areas in math and Danish or on non-cognitive skills. Further, we find no evidence that training of noncognitive skills affects academic outcomes. These results provide a perspective on recent evidence regarding the effects of training non-cognitive skills in schools - by running such an intervention with older pupils and in a comparatively high-resource school system...."

The exercise, "...Accordingly, we ran two variants of a two-week camp, conducted at the school of a participating pupil during the regular teaching hours, targeting grade 8 pupils in Denmark, who are assessed as ‘not ready for further education’.3 After the camp, pupils participated in followup program where they met once a week for eight weeks. In addition to math and Danish, the main learning camp variant devoted roughly 30 percent of the time to strengthen the non-cognitive skills of pupils. For example, pupils (and teachers) learned about self-regulation strategies - such as goal setting (Locke and Latham, 1990) and mental contrasting with implementation intentions (Gollwitzer et al., 2011); and they were introduced to the concept of “growth mindsets” (Dweck, 2006), which reflects a view that ability is malleable and that success is driven by effort. In the alternative variant of the camp, the time spent on training non-cognitive skills in the main variant was instead used for extra training in math and Danish. The motivation for testing two variants of the camp stems from the uncertainty as to whether non-cognitive skills can be manipulated during an intervention as short as the one studied here and which is aimed at 8th graders rather than younger pupils. The two variants allow us to investigate if the time spent training non-cognitive skills makes a difference relative to using it for additional training of academic skills...."

Outcome, "... We observe small, positive short-run effects on the targeted area in mathematics (numbers and algebra). In Danish, the evidence for positive effects is weaker as only one out of the two targeted areas (namely, text comprehension) is positively affected by the camp. In terms of long-run effects, we do not find any effects that are statistically significant at conventional levels. There is some weak indication of the camp having a positive impact on math performance in the final exams in grade 9 and on being enrolled in post-compulsory education three years after the camp. We also examine the effects on non-cognitive skills. Next to self-administered pre- and post- surveys that included several psychological scales, we observe in the register data how school counselors evaluated a pupil's readiness for further education, and use here specifically the evaluation of the personal and social skills. We do not observe any positive effects on any of these outcome measures for the main learning camp that trained non-cognitive skills. The measurement of non-cognitive skills with surveys and the evaluation of the pupil's readiness for further education has some disadvantages. However, there is some evidence to support the lacking effects on non-cognitive skills as not merely a measurement problem. Firstly, we do not observe any spillover effects to non-targeted academic areas in the standardized national tests. If the intervention at the camps affected non-cognitive skills such as self-control, one could expect the improved non-cognitive skills to broadly enhance academic performance both in targeted and non-targeted areas. This, however, is not the case. Secondly, when comparing the two camps, we primarily find non-significant differences in outcomes between the two, once again underlining the lacking effect of non-cognitive skills. Overall, the results thus suggest that the main camp did not affect non-cognitive skills….”

Charlotte Hvidman Alexander Koch Julia Nafziger Søren Albeck Nielsen Michael Rosholm, "An Intensive, School-Based Learning Camp Targeting Academic and Non-Cognitive Skills Evaluated in a Randomized Trial," Institute For Labor Economics, October 2020, https://ftp.iza.org/dp13771.pdf

PISA 2025 Results (Volume I)

OECD Staff Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Date Posted:: September 8, 2026
Is Database:: Database

Mean OECD math and reading scores fell roughly 25 PISA points—about a year of schooling—between 2018 and 2025, alongside reduced motivation and engagement and increased carelessness, exemplified by a near-doubling of “hasty readers.”

In math, performance remained close to the 2003 level up to 2018, then dropped sharply btw 2018 and 2025. Mean performance dropped by 9 score points in mathematics and about 14 score points in reading btw 2022 and 2025. Over the 2018-2025 period, the largest drops [in reading] were among the most advantaged 25% of socio-economic status, and the socio-economic gap with the most disadvantaged students reduced somewhat, by 11 points, on average across 35 OECD countries. In mathematics, the share of disadvantaged students scoring below proficiency Level 2 increased in previous cycles and remained high in 2025; among advantaged students, the share scoring below proficiency Level 2 increased, reaching 18% in 2025, about 4pp. Students’ reports of their motivation for learning and engagement with school also declined between 2022 and 2025. The proportion of “hasty readers” – those who gave fast and incorrect responses – increased by about five percentage points, on average, from almost 7% in 2018 to 11% in 2025. Analyses for math, also show an increase in the proportion of hasty responses between 2022 and 2025.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup^® AI

PISA 2025 mean performance fell by 9 score points in mathematics and about 14 points in reading between 2022 and 2025, after mathematics scores had remained close to their 2003 level through 2018.
Over 2018–2025, the largest reading declines came among the most advantaged 25% by socio-economic status, and the gap with the most disadvantaged students narrowed by 11 points on average across 35 OECD countries.
The share of "hasty readers," who gave fast and incorrect responses, rose about five percentage points, from almost 7% in 2018 to 11% in 2025, with hasty responses in mathematics also increasing between 2022 and 2025.

Standardized Test Scores and Academic Performance at a Public University System

Theodore Joyce, Mina Afrouzi Khosroshahi, Sarah Truelsch, Kerstin Gentsch, et al. National Bureau of Economic Research

Date Posted:: March 25, 2026
Is Database:: Database
Is Important:: Important

SAT scores are known to be better predictors of college and post-college success in Ivy+ universities. By contrast, this study of a public urban university system with 11 colleges shows that for the 2010–2019 cohort, high school GPA strongly dominates SAT scores.

Many of the country’s most selective colleges have returned to requiring the SAT, based on evidence that the test not only predicts student success, but facilitates the identification of qualified applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds. The results from our study of a large public urban university system find the opposite: high school grades are a vastly superior predictor of student academic success than is the SAT. We undertake an exercise with binned scatter plots of six year graduation rates against HSGPA [High School Grade Point Average] stratified by URM [under-represented minority] and whether the student received the maximum Pell grant (Figures 1a and 1b). [Note that SAT is included in the regression so the monotonic linear effect of GDP remains after controlling for SAT score]. We find that URM are less likely to graduate in six years at every level of HSGPA than are non-URM. In contrast, we find no similar difference when we stratify the plot by whether the student received the max Pell grant or not, a strong proxy for a low-income household (Figure 1b). The clear takeaway from the analysis of the 2010-2019 cohorts is the dominance of HSGPA in predicting student academic success. The results are in direct contrast to recent high-profile analyses of students from Ivy-plus colleges that demonstrated the superiority of SAT over HSGPA in predicting not only first-year academic outcomes, but post-college success as well.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup^® AI

In a study of 2010–2019 cohorts at a large public urban university system, high school GPA predicts student academic success far better than the SAT, contrary to analyses of Ivy-plus colleges that found the SAT superior.
Binned scatter plots of six-year graduation rates against high school GPA, controlling for SAT score, show under-represented minority students are less likely to graduate in six years at every level of high school GPA than non-URM students.
Stratifying six-year graduation rates by receipt of the maximum Pell grant, a proxy for a low-income household, shows no similar gap to the one found between under-represented minority and non-URM students.

The Lost Generation

Jacob Savage Compact Magazine

Date Posted:: December 17, 2025
Is Database:: Database
Is Important:: Important

Jacob Savage argues that the widespread discrimination against young white men in “high-status” sectors such as media and tech during the 2010s is a key driver of contemporary political dynamics among young men.

In 2011, the year I moved to Los Angeles, white men were 48% of lower-level TV writers; by 2024, they accounted for just 11.9%. The Atlantic’s editorial staff went from 53% male and 89% white in 2013 to 36% male and 66% white in 2024. White men fell from 39% of tenure-track positions in the humanities at Harvard in 2014 to 18% in 2023. The white men shut out of the culture industries didn’t surge into other high-status fields. At Google, white men went from nearly half the workforce in 2014 to less than a third by 2024—a 34% decline. In 2014, at Amazon, entry-level “professionals”—college graduates just starting out—were 42.3% white male. These were the employees who, if they’d advanced normally over the next decade, would be the mid-level managers of today. But mid-level Amazon managers fell from 55.8% white male in 2014 to just 33.8% in 2024—a decline of nearly 40%. In retrospect, 2014 was the hinge, the year DEI became institutionalized across American life.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup^® AI

White men fell from 48% of lower-level TV writers in 2011 to 11.9% in 2024, and from 39% of Harvard humanities tenure-track positions in 2014 to 18% in 2023.
Mid-level Amazon managers went from 55.8% white male in 2014 to 33.8% in 2024, a decline of nearly 40%, while entry-level Amazon professionals were 42.3% white male in 2014.
At Google, white men fell from nearly half the workforce in 2014 to under a third by 2024, a 34% decline, part of the author's case that 2014 was the hinge year when DEI became institutionalized.

Twelfth-Grade Math and Reading Scores in U.S. Hit New Low

Matt Barnum Wall Street Journal

Date Posted:: September 9, 2025
Is Database:: Database
Is Important:: Important

New National Assessment of Educational Progress results show the share of American high school seniors who scored basic or above on national tests fell to the lowest level on record: 68% in reading and 55% in math.

American high-school seniors’ scores on major math and reading tests fell to their lowest levels on record, according to results released Tuesday by the U.S. Education Department. Twelfth-graders’ average math score was the worst since the current test began in 2005, and reading was below any point since that assessment started in 1992. The share of 12th-graders who were proficient slid by 2 percentage points between 2019 and 2024—to 35% in reading and 22% in math. The results are from tests that are part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, administered to tens of thousands of students in early 2024. In reading, two-thirds of seniors could determine the purpose of a persuasive essay, but only one in five was able to draw a conclusion from such an essay, supported by the text. In math, 60% of students deduced the population of an area using information on size and density, while just under half correctly turned a real-world scenario into an algebraic expression.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup^® AI

U.S. twelfth-graders' average math score was the worst since the current National Assessment of Educational Progress math test began in 2005, and their reading score fell below any point since that assessment started in 1992.
The share of U.S. 12th-graders scoring proficient fell 2 percentage points between 2019 and 2024, to 35% in reading and 22% in math, according to results released by the U.S. Education Department.
In reading, two-thirds of seniors could determine the purpose of a persuasive essay but only one in five could draw a text-supported conclusion from it, while in math just under half converted a real-world scenario into an algebraic expression.

Standardized Test Scores and Academic Performance at Ivy-Plus Colleges

John Friedman, Bruce Sacerdote, Douglas Staiger, and Michele Tine National Bureau of Economic Research

Date Posted:: March 18, 2025
Is Database:: Database
Is Important:: Important

Students at Ivy-plus colleges whose SAT/ACT scores were at the 99th percentile had 1st-year college GPAs 0.43 points higher than those who had scored at the 75th percentile, while high school GPAs had little predictive power. @John_N_Friedman

We analyze admissions and transcript records for students at multiple Ivy-Plus colleges to study the relationship between standardized (SAT/ACT) test scores, high school GPA, and first-year college grades. Standardized test scores predict academic outcomes with a normalized slope four times greater than that from high school GPA, all conditional on students’ race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Standardized test scores do not underpredict college performance for students from less advantaged backgrounds. Collectively these results suggest that standardized test scores provide important information to measure applicants’ academic preparation that is not available elsewhere in the application file. While some of the raw correlation between these variables relates to students’ demographic characteristics, much remains even when controlling for these variables. In contrast, high school GPA does not predict academic performance nearly as well. We also find no evidence of bias against students from less advantaged backgrounds, as students from such backgrounds do not outperform (and in some cases underperform) other students with the same test score

Takeaways by Macro Roundup^® AI

Analyzing admissions and transcript records at multiple Ivy-Plus colleges, the authors find SAT/ACT scores predict first-year college grades with a normalized slope four times greater than high school GPA, conditional on race, gender, and socioeconomic status.
Standardized test scores do not underpredict college performance for students from less advantaged backgrounds, who do not outperform and in some cases underperform other students with the same test score.
Much of the correlation between test scores and academic performance remains after controlling for demographic characteristics, which the authors suggest indicates test scores provide information on applicants' academic preparation not available elsewhere in the application file.

Can Gifted Education Help Higher-Ability Boys from Disadvantaged Backgrounds?

David Card, Eric Chyn, and Laura Giuliano National Bureau of Economic Research

Date Posted:: February 21, 2025
Is Database:: Database

Card et al, find that the 25-30 percentage point college enrollment gap between disadvantaged boys and girls with IQs of ~116 closed among students who qualified for a “gifted” program. @EricChyn

We study the effects of being identified as gifted in elementary school on subsequent test scores, courses and grades, and on the probability of entering college, for disadvantaged children in a large urban school district (“the District”). The law specifies a threshold of 130 [IQ] points for non-disadvantaged students, but allows districts to select a lower “Plan B” threshold [116 pts] for FRL and ELL students. The strict IQ threshold for gifted status provides the basis for a regression discontinuity (RD) evaluation of the impacts of being identified as gifted. Figure 6 illustrates how these impacts affect gender gaps by presenting the estimated mean potential outcomes for the complying boys (left side) and complying girls (right side) using an 8-point bandwidth. The estimated college entry rate for male compliers who narrowly miss the gifted threshold is 46%; the 28 ppt treatment effect of passing the threshold raises this to 74%, which equals the rate for female compliers who narrowly miss the threshold - being identified as gifted raises the college entry rate of marginally eligible boys to the same rate as girls.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup^® AI

Gifted identification raises the estimated college entry rate of marginally eligible disadvantaged boys by 28 percentage points, from 46% for those narrowly missing the threshold to 74%, in a large urban school district.
The estimated 74% college entry rate for marginally eligible boys identified as gifted equals the rate for female compliers who narrowly miss the threshold.
The study uses a regression discontinuity design around the IQ threshold for gifted status, 130 points for non-disadvantaged students and a "Plan B" threshold of 116 points for free-lunch and English-learner students.

A randomized trial of an intensive learning camp for underperforming Danish students found no lasting effects on academic or non-cognitive skills.

Do intensive learning camps produce lasting gains for underperforming students?

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

Mean OECD math and reading scores fell roughly 25 PISA points—about a year of schooling—between 2018 and 2025, alongside reduced motivation and engagement and increased carelessness, exemplified by a near-doubling of “hasty readers.”

Are international student test scores falling alongside declining motivation and engagement?

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

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SAT scores are known to be better predictors of college and post-college success in Ivy+ universities. By contrast, this study of a public urban university system with 11 colleges shows that for the 2010–2019 cohort, high school GPA strongly dominates SAT scores.

Do high school grades predict college success better than test scores?

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Jacob Savage argues that the widespread discrimination against young white men in “high-status” sectors such as media and tech during the 2010s is a key driver of contemporary political dynamics among young men.

How much has white men's share of culture and tech jobs fallen?

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New National Assessment of Educational Progress results show the share of American high school seniors who scored basic or above on national tests fell to the lowest level on record: 68% in reading and 55% in math.

Have U.S. twelfth-grade math and reading scores fallen to record lows?

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

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Students at Ivy-plus colleges whose SAT/ACT scores were at the 99th percentile had 1st-year college GPAs 0.43 points higher than those who had scored at the 75th percentile, while high school GPAs had little predictive power. @John_N_Friedman

Do standardized test scores predict college grades better than high school GPA?

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

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Card et al, find that the 25-30 percentage point college enrollment gap between disadvantaged boys and girls with IQs of ~116 closed among students who qualified for a “gifted” program. @EricChyn

Does gifted identification raise college entry for disadvantaged boys?

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