“…serious thinking for serious thinkers. …a thought-provoking blueprint for growing middle- and working-class incomes.” - Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
“…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 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
“…a comprehensive explanation of the modern economy.” - Julian Robertson, Founder, Tiger Management
“A full-throated defense of economic dynamism.” - The Wall Street Journal
“…a comprehensive explanation of the modern economy.” - Julian Robertson, Founder, Tiger Management
“…a very valuable contribution.” - Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and director of the National Economic Council, president emeritus, Harvard University
“Unintended Consequences should be read by anyone who takes for granted the superiority of progressive taxation and has not thought carefully about the trade-offs involved.” - The New Republic
“…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
“…a must-read for serious students of economic policy.” - Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia Business School, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
“…challenges misconceptions that distort our economic debates.” - Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute

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Genetic Associations with Mathematics Tracking and Persistence in Secondary School

K. Paige Harden Genetic Associations

Date Posted:: April 8, 2019
Is Database:: Database

Study (n=3000): High polygenic scores boost advanced math placement + persistence. Top 2% score students still underenroll in highest math. SES advantaged schools 2x better at supporting both high/low score students.

A study highlights the potential of polygenic scores to predict educational success, particularly in STEM fields, by analyzing data from over 3,000 European-ancestry students in U.S. high schools. Students with higher education polygenic scores were more likely to be tracked into advanced math courses early in high school and persisted longer in math, especially in socioeconomically advantaged schools. These schools not only tracked more students with high polygenic scores into advanced classes but also supported those with lower scores to prevent dropout. Despite this, even students with top 2% polygenic scores rarely enrolled in the most advanced math classes, indicating significant untapped potential for developing STEM talent. This research underscores the importance of integrating genetic insights into educational policy reforms to enhance human capital development and address economic inequality.

new working paper published in a journal affiliated with Cold Spring's Harbor Lab suggests a polygenic score can help predict who gets across the finish line in college.

"....Maximizing the flow of students through the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) pipeline is important to promoting human capital development and reducing economic inequality1. A critical juncture in the STEM pipeline is the highly-cumulative sequence of secondary school math courses2-5. Students from disadvantaged schools are less likely to complete advanced math courses, but debate continues about why6,7. Here, we address this question using student polygenic scores, which are DNA-based indicators of propensity to succeed in education8. We integrated genetic and official school transcript data from over 3,000 European-ancestry students from U.S. high schools. We used polygenic scores as a molecular tracer to understand how the flow of students through the high school math pipeline differs in socioeconomically advantaged versus disadvantaged schools. Students with higher education polygenic scores were tracked to more advanced math already at the beginning of high school and persisted in math for more years. Molecular tracer analyses revealed that the dynamics of the math pipeline differed by school advantage. Compared to disadvantaged schools, advantaged schools tracked more students with high polygenic scores into advanced math classes at the start of high school, and they buffered students with low polygenic scores from dropping out of math. Across all schools, even students with exceptional polygenic scores (top 2%) were unlikely to take the most advanced math classes, suggesting substantial room for improvement in the development of potential STEM talent.These results link new molecular genetic discoveries to a common target of educational-policy reforms.

K. Paige Harden, Benjamin Domingue, Daniel Belsky, Jason Boardman, Robert Crosnoe, Margherita Malanchini, Michel Nivard, Elliot Tucker-Drob, Kathleen Mullan Harris, "Genetic Associations with Mathematics Tracking and Persistence in Secondary School,"bioRxiv, April 5, 2019, https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/04/05/598532.full.pdf

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Covid Learning Losses

David Leonhardt New York Times

Date Posted:: February 12, 2025
Is Database:: Database
Is Important:: Important

.@DLeonhardt reports a sharp partisan gap in learning loss: 8 of the 10 states with the biggest math declines since 2019 – likely due to prolonged school closures – voted Democratic, while 8 of the 10 smallest shortfalls voted Republican.

Many public schools in heavily Democratic areas stayed closed for almost a year — from the spring of 2020 until the spring of 2021. In some Republican areas, by contrast, schools remained closed for only the spring of 2020. Eight of the 10 states that have lost the most ground since 2019 voted Democratic in recent presidential elections. And eight of the 10 states with the smallest math shortfalls voted Republican. [Higher initial scores don’t] explain the post-pandemic patterns. For example, New Jersey (a blue state) and Utah (a red state) both had high math scores in 2019, but New Jersey has fared much worse since then.

Study (n=3000): High polygenic scores boost advanced math placement + persistence. Top 2% score students still underenroll in highest math. SES advantaged schools 2x better at supporting both high/low score students.

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.

Related Articles:

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.

Related Articles:

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.

Related Articles:

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

Related Articles:

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

Related Articles:

.@DLeonhardt reports a sharp partisan gap in learning loss: 8 of the 10 states with the biggest math declines since 2019 – likely due to prolonged school closures – voted Democratic, while 8 of the 10 smallest shortfalls voted Republican.

Related Articles: