PolicyCast
249 episodes - English - Latest episode: 20 days ago - ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsOur hosts speak with leading experts in public policy, media, and international affairs about their experiences confronting the world's most pressing public problems.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
The Ghost Budget: How U.S. war spending went rogue, wasted billions, and how to fix it
March 29, 2024 21:06 - 45 minutes - 42 MBHKS Senior Lecturer Linda Bilmes, an expert on public finance who has studied post-9/11 war costs for the past 20 years, says their staggering $5 trillion cost was enabled by what she calls “The Ghost Budget.” Using an unprecedented combination of borrowing, accounting tricks, and outsourcing, presidential administrations, Congress, and the Pentagon were able to circumvent traditional military budget processes in a way that kept war costs out of the public debate and resulted in trillions be...
The Great Creep Backward: Policy responses to China’s slowing economy
March 14, 2024 17:07 - 55 minutes - 50.9 MBHarvard Kennedy School Professor Rana Mitter and Harvard Business School Associate Professor Meg Rithmire say that after decades of tremendous growth, an economically slowing China is the new normal. With a growing debt-to-GDP ratio, an aging population, a devastating real estate bubble, and a loss of confidence among both foreign investors and domestic consumers, Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party face a daunting array of thorny problems—including ones of their own...
Two peoples. Two states. Why U.S. diplomacy in Israel and Palestine needs vision, partners, and a backbone
February 29, 2024 15:48 - 38 minutes - 35.4 MBFormer U.S. Ambassador to Israel Ed Djerejian says Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin once told him “There is no military solution to this conflict, only a political one.” Rabin was assassinated a few years later and today bullets are flying, bombs are falling, and 1,200 Israelis are dead after the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7 and nearly 30,000 Gazans have been killed in the Israeli response. Yet Djerejain still believes that a breakthrough is possible even in the current moment, as...
We can productively discuss even the toughest topics—here’s how
February 16, 2024 12:32 - 46 minutes - 42.3 MBAs our discourse and our politics have become both more polarized and paralyzed, Harvard Kennedy School faculty members Erica Chenoweth and Julia Minson say we need to refocus on listening to understand, instead of talking to win. In mid-2022, the School launched the Candid and Constructive Conversations initiative, based on the idea that frank yet productive discussions over differences are not only vital to democracy and a functioning society, but that the ability to have them was also an ...
The document that redefined humanity: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 75
December 21, 2023 18:09 - 43 minutes - 39.5 MBHarvard Kennedy School Professor Kathryn Sikkink and former longtime Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth have spent years both studying the transformational effects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and have worked on the ground to make its vision of a more just, equal world a reality. On December 10th, the world celebrated not only the annual Human Rights Day, but also the 75th anniversary of the UDHR, which some historians and social scientists consider to be the ...
Legacy of privilege: David Deming and Raj Chetty on how elite college admissions policies affect who gains power and prestige
November 29, 2023 16:06 - 41 minutes - 37.9 MBLegacy admissions, particularly at elite colleges and universities, were thrust into the spotlight this summer when the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended affirmative action in admissions. The ruling raised many questions, and fortunately, Harvard Kennedy School professor David Deming and Harvard Economics Professor Raj Chetty were there with some important answers—having just wrapped up a 6-year study of the impact of legacy admissions at so-called “Ivy-plus” schools. Students spend years...
Need to solve an intractable problem? Try collaborative governing
November 09, 2023 21:07 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBHarvard Kennedy School faculty member Jorrit de Jong and Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmondson say the big, intractable problems challenges facing city leaders today are too complex to be addressed by any one agency or government department. Complex challenges like the shortage of economic opportunity and affordable housing, homelessness, the effects of the climate crisis, crime—and can only be solved by multiple organizations working together. But that’s easier said than done. Bri...
How to keep "TLDR" syndrome from killing your policy proposal
October 25, 2023 19:31 - 45 minutes - 41.4 MBHarvard Kennedy School Professor Todd Rogers and Lecturer in Public Policy Lauren Brodsky say trying too hard to sound intelligent—even when communicating complex or nuanced ideas—isn't a smart strategy. Because today’s overburdened information consumers are as much skimmers as readers, Rogers and Brodsky teach people how to put readers first and use tools like simplification, formatting, and storytelling for maximum engagement. They say you can have the most brilliant, well-researched ideas...
Dr. Rochelle Walensky on making health care policy under fire
October 05, 2023 12:55 - 41 minutes - 38 MBDr. Rochelle Walensky, who served as CDC director from 2021 to 2023, calls the job “probably the hardest thing I will ever do.” But she also calls it “the honor of a lifetime.” When she was appointed by President Biden as the CDC’s 19th director, she was already used to politicized health care issues, having spent her formative years as a physician working on HIV and AIDS. But COVID thrust her into an unprecedented spotlight, forcing her to lead a demoralized agency through the challenges of...
AI can be democracy’s ally—but not if it works for Big Tech
September 20, 2023 12:39 - 43 minutes - 40.2 MBKennedy School Lecturer in Public Policy Bruce Schneier says Artificial Intelligence has the potential to transform the democratic process in ways that could be good, bad, and potentially mind-boggling. The important thing, he says, will be to use regulation and other tools to make sure that AIs are working for us, and just not for Big Tech companies—a hard lesson we’ve already learned through our experience with social media. When ChatGPT and other generative AI tools were released to the ...
The more Indigenous nations self govern, the more they succeed
June 08, 2023 19:43 - 35 minutes - 32.4 MBHarvard Kennedy School Professor Joseph Kalt and Megan Minoka Hill say the evidence is in: When Native nations make their own decisions about what development approaches to take, studies show they consistently out-perform external decision makers like the U.S. Department of Indian Affairs. Kalt and Hill say that’s why Harvard is going all in, recently changing the name of the Project on American Indian Economic Development to the Project on Indigenous Governance and Development—pushing the i...
If you don’t have multiracial democracy, you have no democracy at all
May 16, 2023 18:14 - 45 minutes - 42 MBThe history of American democracy has always been fraught when it comes to race. Yet no matter how elusive it may be, Harvard Kennedy School professors Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Archon Fung say true multiracial democracy not only remains a worthy goal, but achieving it is critically important to our collective future. From the earliest, formative days of the American political experiment, the creation of laws and political structures was often less about achieving some Platonic ideal of the...
Why smart infrastructure is a smart investment—for both Democrats and Republicans—in an era of historic public works spending
April 18, 2023 13:47 - 36 minutes - 33.5 MBAs the U.S. prepares to spend hundreds of billions on new projects, HKS Professor Stephen Goldsmith says successfully upgrading our infrastructure will not only require spending all that money smartly, but spending it on infrastructure that is itself smart—full of sensors that can anticipate problems before they require costly repairs and that serve multiple functions instead of just one. With the passage of 2021’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the 2022’s Inflation Re...
Transitioning to clean power without workers absorbing the shock
April 06, 2023 12:20 - 38 minutes - 35.6 MBHarvard Kennedy School Professor Gordon Hanson and Harvard Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability James Stock say an important part of the green energy transition will be mitigating its effects on employment, both in the United States and overseas. Talking about the clean energy transition can conjure up images of commuters using sleek electric trains and electric cars powered by the sun and wind, and of workers with good-paying jobs installing the infrastructure of the future. But the ...
The rising tide no one’s talking about—finding homes for millions of climate crisis migrants
March 20, 2023 14:10 - 35 minutes - 32.8 MBWhen it comes to the climate crisis, there’s barely a day that goes by when we don’t hear about the impending effects of rising sea levels and storm-driven tides. But Harvard professors Jaqueline Bhabha and Hannah Teicher say there’s another rising tide that’s not getting as much attention, despite its potential to reshape our world. It’s the wave of climate migrants—people who have been and will be driven from their homes by rising seas, extreme heat, catastrophic weather, and climate-relat...
Local news is civic infrastructure. And it’s crumbling. Can we save it?
March 07, 2023 14:35 - 44 minutes - 41 MBHarvard Kennedy School professors Nancy Gibbs and Tom Patterson say local news is civic infrastructure. And it's crumbling. Like bridges, local news organizations use facts to help people connect with each other over the chasm of partisan political divides. People need reliable information to make important decisions about their lives—Where should I send my child to school? Who should I vote for? Should I buy a bigger house or a new car?—just as much as they need breathable air, clean water,...
There's groundbreaking new science to help cut methane emissions, but is there the political will?
February 08, 2023 16:19 - 40 minutes - 37.2 MBHarvard Kennedy School Professor Robert Stavins and Professor Daniel Jacob of Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are at the forefront of new efforts to monitor and control methane, a potent greenhouse gas. It used to seem like methane wasn't such a big deal. It was that other climate gas, the one that was the butt of cow flatulence jokes and that only stayed in the atmosphere for a decade or so. But since important global warming targets are now just 7 years away and scienc...
Joe Aldy on the complex economics of the clean energy transition
January 25, 2023 18:17 - 45 minutes - 41.8 MBEconomist and Harvard Kennedy School Professor Joe Aldy says possibly the most complex—and one of the most existentially important—problems facing humanity is how to pull out the roots of fossil fuel infrastructure that are so deeply embedded in the global economy. The work is complex and the scale is immense; In fact it’s been said that transitioning the global economy from fossil fuels to sustainable sources will require the largest reallocation of capital in human history. Meanwhile Russ...
Goals and realities: What World Cup performances can teach us about development in African countries
December 09, 2022 14:16 - 33 minutes - 30.9 MBMatt Andrews, the faculty director of the Building State Capability program at Harvard Kennedy School, says the reasons why African nations haven’t done better at soccer’s world championships have a lot in common with why much of the continent’s economic promise has also gone unfulfilled. The World Cup, the biggest championship in soccer—or football, depending on where you are from—is currently underway and it's one of the two most-watched sporting events on the planet, the other being the O...
How American cities can prepare for an increasingly destructive climate
November 23, 2022 16:13 - 33 minutes - 30.4 MBFormer New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has a unique perspective on the topic of climate resiliency. He was a city official in 2012 for Superstorm Sandy—which many call the worst disaster in New York City’s history—and in 2021 for Hurricane Ida, which caused $24 billion worth of flooding in the Northeastern United States, making it the costliest and most damaging storm since Sandy nine years before. He was also mayor during most of those nine years, when policymakers, planners, and the cit...
Why women are authoritarianism’s targets—and how they can be its undoing
November 03, 2022 06:08 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBHarvard Kennedy School Professor Erica Chenoweth and Lecturer in Public Policy Zoe Marks say the parallel global trends of rising authoritarianism and attempts to roll back women’s rights are no coincidence. The hard won rights women have attained over the past century—to education, to full participation in the workforce, in politics, and civic life, and to reproductive healthcare—have transformed society and corresponded with historic waves of democratization around the world. But they have...
Former Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven on stemming the tide of right-wing authoritarianism
October 19, 2022 16:33 - 39 minutes - 36.1 MBDuring his 7 years leading Sweden’s government from 2014 to 2021, Stefan Löfven had a front row seat to observe the rise of right-wing and neo-fascist political parties both at home and around Europe. A former welder, and union leader from working class roots, Löfven earned the nickname “the escape artist” during his years as prime minister for his knack for holding together governments despite his country’s increasingly fractious and polarized politics. But this year the Sweden Democrats—a ...
Low-wage and gig workers have it worse than we thought—and why that matters for us all
October 05, 2022 12:00 - 39 minutes - 35.8 MBHarvard Kennedy School Professor Danny Schneider says research shows that even as they were being lauded as heroes during the COVID-19 pandemic, working conditions for hourly workers were deteriorating. Eight years ago, Schneider co-founded The Shift Project, which has built an unprecedented repository of data on scheduling and working conditions for hourly service workers. But if there was silver lining to the pandemic, it was that it also put a spotlight on the plight of workers who had b...
Data analysis and policy design—not good intentions—will fix healthcare post COVID
September 21, 2022 17:11 - 40 minutes - 37.5 MBAs healthcare policy navigates what is widely seen as a historic inflection point, Harvard Kennedy School professors Amitabh Chandra and Soroush Saghafian say policymakers need to pursue change with care, deeply analyzing the weaknesses the COVID-19 pandemic exposed and using that data to design intelligent policy that can create truly transformational change. COVID stretched the U.S. health care system and health care systems across the world to the breaking point and beyond, buy if there’...
241 Data analysis and policy design—not good intentions—will fix healthcare post COVID
September 21, 2022 17:11 - 40 minutes - 37.5 MBAs healthcare policy navigates what is widely seen as a historic inflection point, Harvard Kennedy School professors Amitabh Chandra and Soroush Saghafian say policymakers need to pursue change with care, deeply analyzing the weaknesses the COVID-19 pandemic exposed and using that data to design intelligent policy that can create truly transformational change. COVID stretched the U.S. health care system and health care systems across the world to the breaking point and beyond, buy if there’...
240 Values, courage, and how good public leadership can save us
September 02, 2022 17:17 - 33 minutes - 30.7 MBNew Center for Public Leadership co-director Devan Patrick ascribes bad leadership as a root cause of many of the huge problems facing human society and the world, including the climate crisis, and threats to democracy and human rights. But are bad leaders flawed because of their personal shortcomings or are they an inevitable product of the flawed systems they operate within? And what makes a good leader? Is it their ability to get people to follow them? Or is it choosing the right things t...
Values, courage, and how good public leadership can save us
September 02, 2022 17:17 - 33 minutes - 30.7 MBNew Center for Public Leadership co-director Deval Patrick ascribes bad leadership as a root cause of many of the huge problems facing human society and the world, including the climate crisis, and threats to democracy and human rights. But are bad leaders flawed because of their personal shortcomings or are they an inevitable product of the flawed systems they operate within? And what makes a good leader? Is it their ability to get people to follow them? Or is it choosing the right things t...
239 He predicted globalization’s failure, now he’s planning what’s next
June 30, 2022 14:46 - 38 minutes - 35.1 MBFor more than a quarter century, economist and Harvard Kennedy School professor Dani Rodrik has been ringing alarm bells about the dangers of globalization. And for a long time, it didn’t seem like a whole lot of people were listening. Now as record economic inequality, a climate in crisis, and global financial shocks from to the COVID pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have exposed the vulnerabilities and shortcomings of unchecked globalization and neoliberal orthodoxy about the prim...
He predicted globalization’s failure, now he’s planning what’s next
June 30, 2022 14:46 - 38 minutes - 35.1 MBFor more than a quarter century, economist and Harvard Kennedy School professor Dani Rodrik has been ringing alarm bells about the dangers of globalization. And for a long time, it didn’t seem like a whole lot of people were listening. Now as record economic inequality, a climate in crisis, and global financial shocks from to the COVID pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have exposed the vulnerabilities and shortcomings of unchecked globalization and neoliberal orthodoxy about the prim...
Reform, refugees, and the war next door: President Maia Sandu of Moldova
June 14, 2022 15:26 - 25 minutes - 23.7 MBAs war rages in neighboring Ukraine, Moldovan President Maia Sandu talks to about fighting corruption, moving her country toward the European Union, and the half million refugees who’ve crossed the border since February. Sandu is a popular choice on lists of up-and-coming world leaders, including a recent one that nicknamed her “the tightrope walker.” Sandu’s task has been daunting—preserving her country’s young democracy while fighting endemic corruption; modernizing Moldova’s economy and t...
238 Reform, refugees, and the war next door: President Maia Sandu of Moldova
June 14, 2022 15:26 - 25 minutes - 23.7 MBAs war rages in neighboring Ukraine, Moldovan President Maia Sandu talks to about fighting corruption, moving her country toward the European Union, and the half million refugees who’ve crossed the border since February. Sandu is a popular choice on lists of up-and-coming world leaders, including a recent one that nicknamed her “the tightrope walker.” Sandu’s task has been daunting—preserving her country’s young democracy while fighting endemic corruption; modernizing Moldova’s economy and t...
237 The pandemic's silver lining—a treasure trove of data on social protection programs
May 05, 2022 14:25 - 35 minutes - 32.1 MBDevelopment economist Rema Hanna sees the thousands of new social protection programs created during the COVID-19 pandemic as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study the best ways to help lift people out of poverty. The Harvard Kennedy School professor tells PolicyCast host Ralph Ranalli that with the pandemic came massive economic and social disruption—people couldn’t work, and there were widespread closures of not just businesses but also schools and other social institutions. Government...
The pandemic's silver lining—a trove of data on social protection programs
May 05, 2022 14:25 - 35 minutes - 32.1 MBRema Hanna is the Jeffrey Cheah Professor of South-East Asia Studies and Chair of the International Development Area at the Harvard Kennedy School. She also serves as the Faculty Director of Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) at Harvard University’s Center for International Development and is the co-Scientific Director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South East Asia Office in Indonesia. In addition, Professor Hanna is a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Eco...
237 The pandemic's silver lining—a trove of data on social protection programs
May 05, 2022 14:25 - 35 minutes - 32.1 MBRema Hanna is the Jeffrey Cheah Professor of South-East Asia Studies and Chair of the International Development Area at the Harvard Kennedy School. She also serves as the Faculty Director of Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) at Harvard University’s Center for International Development and is the co-Scientific Director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South East Asia Office in Indonesia. In addition, Professor Hanna is a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Eco...
236 How worldwide outrage over atrocities in Ukraine is fueling a new push for international justice
April 19, 2022 16:33 - 37 minutes - 34.1 MBInternational outrage over Russia's war on Ukraine could be a watershed moment for the advance of international justice and accountability, say Harvard Kennedy School Professor Kathryn Sikkink and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Assistant Professor Patrick Vinck. With the eyes of the world focused on atrocities in places like Bucha and Mariupol, Sikkink and Vinck say it is time for countries to invest both their geopolitical and financial capital in the International Criminal Court...
How worldwide outrage over atrocities in Ukraine is fueling a new push for international justice
April 19, 2022 16:33 - 37 minutes - 34.1 MBInternational outrage over Russia's war on Ukraine could be a watershed moment for the advance of international justice and accountability, say Harvard Kennedy School Professor Kathryn Sikkink and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Assistant Professor Patrick Vinck. With the eyes of the world focused on atrocities in places like Bucha and Mariupol, Sikkink and Vinck say it is time for countries to invest both their geopolitical and financial capital in the International Criminal Court...
235 O'Sullivan and Frankel: How the sanctions on Putin's Russia are reshaping the world economic order
March 17, 2022 19:29 - 39 minutes - 36.6 MBHKS professors Meghan O’Sullivan and Jeffrey Frankel say the draconian sanctions on Putin’s regime—which came together faster than almost anyone predicted—will have far-reaching and lasting effects well beyond Russia’s borders. In a nuclear-armed world where direct superpower conflict can have apocalyptic consequences, the proxy battlefield has become economics and finance. Instead of firing missiles, combatants lob sanctions to inflict pain and achieve strategic goals. Rather than cutting o...
O'Sullivan and Frankel: How the sanctions on Putin's Russia are reshaping the world economic order
March 17, 2022 19:29 - 39 minutes - 36.6 MBHKS professors Meghan O’Sullivan and Jeffrey Frankel say the draconian sanctions on Putin’s regime—which came together faster than almost anyone predicted—will have far-reaching and lasting effects well beyond Russia’s borders. In a nuclear-armed world where direct superpower conflict can have apocalyptic consequences, the proxy battlefield has become economics and finance. Instead of firing missiles, combatants lob sanctions to inflict pain and achieve strategic goals. Rather than cutting o...
234 Keyssar and Fung: America’s flawed democracy is in deep—and possibly fatal—trouble
February 17, 2022 19:46 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MBHarvard Kennedy School Professors Alex Keyssar and Archon Fung say the U.S. political system, stripped of a consensus belief in democratic principles, is racing down a dangerous road toward political and social upheaval and possible minority rule. American democracy, they tell PolicyCast host Ralph Ranalli, is in trouble to an extent not seen in many decades, possibly since the Civil War, or perhaps ever. If you believe in democracy as essentially one-person, one-vote, and as a system where ...
Keyssar and Fung: America’s flawed democracy is in deep—and possibly fatal—trouble
February 17, 2022 19:46 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MBHarvard Kennedy School Professors Alex Keyssar and Archon Fung say the U.S. political system, stripped of a consensus belief in democratic principles, is racing down a dangerous road toward political and social upheaval and possible minority rule. American democracy, they tell PolicyCast host Ralph Ranalli, is in trouble to an extent not seen in many decades, possibly since the Civil War, or perhaps ever. If you believe in democracy as essentially one-person, one-vote, and as a system where ...
The U.S. pays reparations every day—just not to Black America
February 03, 2022 17:09 - 45 minutes - 41.6 MBHKS faculty members Cornell William Brooks and Linda Bilmes explore the vexing disconnect between the vast US system of restorative justice and the deep-rooted, intergenerational harms suffered by Black Americans. Every day, someone somewhere in America is being compensated under what is known as restorative justice, a type of justice that instead of meting out punishment to a wrongdoer, seeks to make the victims or their families whole—or at least repair them as much as possible. Restorat...
233 The U.S. pays reparations every day—just not to Black America
February 03, 2022 17:09 - 45 minutes - 41.6 MBHKS faculty members Cornell William Brooks and Linda Bilmes explore the vexing disconnect between the vast US system of restorative justice and the deep-rooted, intergenerational harms suffered by Black Americans. Every day, someone somewhere in America is being compensated under what is known as restorative justice, a type of justice that instead of meting out punishment to a wrongdoer, seeks to make the victims or their families whole—or at least repair them as much as possible. Restorat...
Graham Allison on how China’s rising global power could lead to superpower conflict—or something else.
January 21, 2022 16:28 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBIt takes a lot to impress Professor Graham Allison when it comes to geopolitics. He is, after all, the Cold Warrior’s Cold Warrior—as one of America’s most influential defense policy analysts and advisors, he was twice awarded the Defense Department’s highest civilian honor for his work on nuclear disarmament with Russia. He’s a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, former director of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founding member of the Trilateral Commission, and a renowned political ...
232 Graham Allison on how China’s rising global power could lead to superpower conflict—or something else.
January 21, 2022 16:28 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBIt takes a lot to impress Professor Graham Allison when it comes to geopolitics. He is, after all, the Cold Warrior’s Cold Warrior—as one of America’s most influential defense policy analysts and advisors, he was twice awarded the Defense Department’s highest civilian honor for his work on nuclear disarmament with Russia. He’s a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, former director of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founding member of the Trilateral Commission, and a renowned political ...
Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa on how social media is pushing journalism—and democracy—to the brink
December 10, 2021 16:22 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBThe Nobel Committee has awarded its 2021 Peace Prize to Maria Ressa for being a fearless defender of independent journalism and freedom of expression in the Philippines, and particularly for her work exposing the human rights abuses of authoritarian President Rodrigo Duterte. But the prize is also a de facto acknowledgement that Ressa has become something of a one-woman personification of the struggles, perils, and promise of journalism in the age of social media. A longtime investigative ...
231 Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa on how social media is pushing journalism—and democracy—to the brink
December 10, 2021 16:22 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBThe Nobel Committee has awarded its 2021 Peace Prize to Maria Ressa for being a fearless defender of independent journalism and freedom of expression in the Philippines, and particularly for her work exposing the human rights abuses of authoritarian President Rodrigo Duterte. But the prize is also a de facto acknowledgement that Ressa has become something of a one-woman personification of the struggles, perils, and promise of journalism in the age of social media. A longtime investigative ...
230 How can we invest public funds well when our debates about cost are so flawed?
December 02, 2021 12:15 - 44 minutes - 40.3 MBLinda J. Bilmes, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, is a leading expert on budgetary and public financial issues. Her research focuses on budgeting and public administration in the public, private and non-profit sectors. She is interested in how resources are allocated, particularly defense budgets, costs of war, veterans, sub-national budgeting and public lands. She is a full-time Harvard faculty member, teaching budgeting, cost accounting and public finance, and ...
230 How our flawed debates about cost hurt our ability to spend public money wisely
December 02, 2021 12:15 - 44 minutes - 40.3 MBBarely a news cycle goes by these days without someone in public office saying ‘We can’t afford that,’ while at the same time defending their favorite budget priorities and tossing around mind-numbingly large cost figures in the billions and trillions of dollars. Those debates can seem very cynical, and of course Oscar Wilde famously defined a cynic as a person who knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. But Harvard Kennedy School Senior Lecturer Linda Bilmes says things are e...
230 How our flawed debates about cost prevent us from spending public money wisely
December 02, 2021 12:15 - 44 minutes - 40.3 MBBarely a news cycle goes by these days without someone in public office saying ‘We can’t afford that,’ while at the same time defending their favorite budget priorities and tossing around mind-numbingly large cost figures in the billions and trillions of dollars. Those debates can seem very cynical, and of course Oscar Wilde famously defined a cynic as a person who knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. But Harvard Kennedy School Senior Lecturer Linda Bilmes says things are e...
How our flawed debates about cost prevent us from spending public money wisely
December 02, 2021 12:15 - 44 minutes - 40.3 MBBarely a news cycle goes by these days without someone in public office saying ‘We can’t afford that,’ while at the same time defending their favorite budget priorities and tossing around mind-numbingly large cost figures in the billions and trillions of dollars. Those debates can seem very cynical, and of course Oscar Wilde famously defined a cynic as a person who knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. But Harvard Kennedy School Senior Lecturer Linda Bilmes says things are e...