Why does social policy matter?
Through data-driven research, hands-on training, and collaborative public engagement, the Malcolm Wiener Center advances policy initiatives that empower people to solve the most urgent social challenges and questions of our times.
Spotlight
Desmond Ang awarded 2026 Sloan Research Fellowship
The Malcolm Wiener Center congratulates faculty member Desmond Ang, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, on being awarded the 2026 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Economics. Ang joins a distinguished cohort of 126 early-career scholars and a fellowship lineage that includes 59 Nobel laureates. The two-year, $75,000 fellowship recognizes researchers whose creativity and accomplishments position them as the next generation of scientific leaders.
Daniel Schneider appointed Associate Director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies
Daniel Schneider, Co-Director of The Shift Project and MWC Professor of Social Policy, has been appointed Associate Director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. As a Harvard interfaculty initiative, administered by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, this Center connects academics and scientists from across Harvard and beyond—to make exciting advances in population research.
Economics for Inclusive Prosperity launches new podcast
The inaugural episode of the Economics for Inclusive Prosperity Podcast, featuring Reimagining the Economy Faculty Co-Director Dani Rodrik, and Suresh Naidu, a professor of economics and international and public affairs at Columbia University, was released today. Listen to the episode.
Recent Insights
Faculty Focus
Luis Armona
Luis Armona is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He graduated from Stanford University in 2022 with a Ph.D. in Economics. In the past, he has worked at Chegg and Microsoft Research and served as a research advisor at Meta. Before graduate school, he worked as an RA at the New York Federal Reserve. For the 2022-23 academic year, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the NBER. His research interests lie in industrial organization, with applications to college behavior in post-secondary education, firearms markets, and how machine learning methods can be used to enhance existing economic models.
Professor Gordon Hanson and collaborators wrote about a phenomenon they called the China Shock, which saw traditional U.S. manufacturing communities struggle in the early aughts as a result of China’s growing trade power. Now, they warn that China Shock 2.0 is on the way. Watch Hanson talk about the China Shock 2.0 in a new video.
Publications, Events, and News
Getting Rid of Bias in Schools
As part of "The Case for Equity" video series, Michela Carlana sheds light on how awareness about one's own personal biases may help mitigate the effects stereotypes can have when working with students.
Questions We Explore
The Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management
The Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management draws from rigorous research as well as insights from practitioners and people from impacted communities to inform the development of fairer and more just criminal legal system policies, practices, and procedures.
The Stone Program
The James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Program in Wealth Distribution, Inequality and Social Policy unites faculty, students, and researchers from across Harvard University and beyond to address the causes and consequences of wealth inequalities in different populations around the world.
Reimagining the Economy
The Reimagining the Economy project explores local labor market, industrial, and development policies, combined with practitioner insights, to produce multidisciplinary scholarship to reshape narratives about how we achieve inclusive prosperity.
Shift Project
The Shift Project, a joint project at Harvard Kennedy School and UCSF, examines the nature and consequences of precarious employment in the service sector with a focus on how policymakers and firms can improve job quality.
Depoliticizing Public Health
Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto (former mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico), Rochelle Walensky (former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director), and Asa Hutchinson (former Governor of Arkansas) discussed how to reach across partisan divides and establish effective public health policies as part of the HKS Candid & Constructive Conversations series. HKS faculty affiliate and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health professor of public health policy Sara Bleich moderated the discussion.