Opportunity Lab

Where the Hood At? Fifty Years of Change in Black Neighborhoods | Opportunity Lab On September 3 at 4pm, join O-Lab and Berkeley’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE)  for a discussion with Michael Lens of UCLA about his new book examining how Black neighborh...

Don't miss @mc-lens.bsky.social's book talk at @ucberkeleyirle.bsky.social next week! Lens will share research on how Black neighborhoods have changed in the past 50 years, + discuss policies that could shape the next 50 years of progress towards racial equity. www.olab.berkeley.edu/olab-events/...

The Political Effects of Affirmative Action: Evidence from Court Mandates to Law Enforcement Agencies | The Journal of Legal Studies: Vol 54, No 2 Abstract Affirmative action programs in public sector agencies are a canonical example of race-conscious remedial policy. While these regimes increase public sector diversity, they may also generate p...

Researchers have theorized that #affirmativeaction policies pushed white voters toward the Republican party through the 1970s and 1980s. Work from Abhay Aneja + @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social suggests that this "backlash" narrative could be more complex: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

Spatial inequality: what we know and where we're headed | Readymag The divide between high- and low-opportunity places is more visible than ever, perpetuating long-run inequities and drawing the attention of policymakers. This presentation to review the evidence on r...

🗺️ In a new interactive report, we break down trends in spatial inequality and explore how place-based policy tools may open up more equitable pathways to economic mobility: readymag.website/u440546056/5...

What goes into a university budget? And how do endowments work? Let an expert be your guide Million dollar settlements to regain federal funding? Rising tuition, but layoffs and course cuts? We're here to help.

The landscape of US #highered is changing. @jrothst.bsky.social breaks down the conditions attached to donations, how endowments can be managed, and how research funding negotiations between universities and the federal government are unfolding in @laist.com:

How Trump’s War on Higher Education Is Hitting Community Colleges

Community colleges are grappling with the loss of resources as a result of federal policy changes, just as elite universities are. In @nytimes.com, Ben Austen describes how funding cuts are threatening American ambitions around manufacturing & workforce development. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/m...

Where the Hood At? Fifty Years of Change in Black Neighborhoods | Opportunity Lab On September 3 at 4pm, join O-Lab and Berkeley’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE)  for a discussion with Michael Lens of UCLA about his new book examining how Black neighborh...

🏘️ On Sep. 3, join O-Lab + @ucberkeleyirle.bsky.social in for a book talk w/ @mc-lens.bsky.social on “Where the Hood At: Fifty Years of Change in Black Neighborhoods." @uclalewiscenter.bsky.social @goldmanschool.bsky.social

Learn more and add the event to your calendar👇

⏰ The application for O-Lab's undergraduate research mentorship program with @ucenergyinstitute.bsky.social closes tonight at midnight! Learn about Valentina de la Pava's experience in the program in this video, and submit your application at bit.ly/EEEundergrad-2025.

When families with children receive #Medicaid, they fare better in the long run, and early-life effects are particularly strong. As policy changes threaten the social safety net, these gains are at risk. Learn more: www.olab.berkeley.edu/resources-blog/medicaid-shortform

If you are a @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social undergraduate student interested in a career in research, or just lookin to use data to answer interesting questions (or know someone), please share this link and encourage them to apply by 8/11! (no research experience is required) (shorturl.at/sKPCl)

💊 Patients stop consuming high-value drugs, which also are expected to cause life-threatening withdrawal symptoms.
⚠️ Survey data suggests that patients are unaware of these risks – with only ⅓ believing that stopping their medication for a month could have life-threatening consequences.

The authors leverage this randomness to measure what happens when this annual budget is exhausted, effectively raising medication prices.

Key findings:
📈 Individuals with smaller monthly budgets consume fewer medications and face increased mortality.

#Medicare recipients receive an annual budget for prescription drugs, beyond which costs are paid for out of pocket.

But this budget is not prorated annually – so newly eligible Medicare patients who turn 65 in a given year experience different monthly budgets.

🧵 Randomized trials evaluate the costs of starting a drug – but what about stopping one?

Read the paper from Ziad Obermeyer, Amitabh Chandra, & Evan Flack: ziadobermeyer.com/wp-content/u...

What do the looming cuts to Medicaid really mean? Health policy expert Will Dow breaks down the risks—and potential state-level response.

“Not all of these adverse effects are inevitable.”

In a recent interview, Will Dow of @berkeleypublichlth.bsky.social unpacks how the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will change the state of US #healthcare over the next 10 years.

👉 Read the full interview: publichealth.berkeley.edu/articles/new...

Narratives and destigmatization: the case of criminal record stigma in the labor market - American Journal of Cultural Sociology Sociologists use the concept of narrative as an analytical tool and theoretical concept to understand the stories that people tell and their role in social and cultural life. A key tenet of prior rese...

💼 In a study of how formerly incarcerated jobseekers experience the labor market, David Harding & coauthors found that employers favor applicants that describe economic motivations, as opposed to justice system failures, to contextualize their pasts. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🍎 In FY2023, the National School Lunch Program provided 4.6B lunches. Now, Hilary Hoynes & coauthors find that school lunch reduces children's caloric intake by reducing soda/fat consumption. In the wake of #USDA cuts, this evidence should be top of mind: static1.squarespace.com/static/5ecd7...

🔋 The 2022 #InflationReductionAct represented the largest federal #climate investment in U.S. history. Research from John Bistline & Catherine Wolfram reveals the scale of what America stands to lose as recent policy changes dismantle these provisions: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

🇫🇷A 2011 reform to the French wealth tax simplified reporting requirements for taxpayers whose wealth was below €3 million, a threshold further reduced to €2.57 million in 2013. Mathilde Muñoz + coauthors have now identified that the reform significantly spurred tax evasion (via @cepr.org)

👉 Our new research brief offers a look at how #unemployment insurance rules vary by states and have changed over time. Supported by the WorkRise Network at @urbaninstitute.bsky.social, Ellora Derenoncourt + Claire Montialoux are developing a database of #UI rules dating back to 1937. bit.ly/4lBI4Jz

💭 Envisioning a better future is crucial to creating one.

Kevin Yin is developing a spatial model to inform our understanding of what an ideal electricity grid for the United States might look like, as part of O-Lab's portfolio of work on Transportation & Infrastructure development.

💡Are you a 2nd - 4th year Berkeley undergrad looking to gain research experience? Interested in tackling environmental problems w/ data + stats?

Apply to O-Lab + @ucenergyinstitute.bsky.social's Energy & Environmental Economics Mentorship Program!

🔗 Learn more: bit.ly/EEEundergrad-2025

🚘 Many municipalities require that a percentage of private lots' square footage is set aside for parking, creating direct costs for governments and developers. John Kadlick is exploring indirect costs to productivity and effects on commuters. #econsky

#EconSky: @capolicylab.bsky.social is hiring a labor-focused data analyst.

Apply today: capolicylab.org/careers/data...

We welcome submissions for the 2025 Dissertation Award, given to the best Ph.D. dissertation on employment-related issues. The award furthers the Upjohn Institute mission to support and conduct policy-relevant research on issues related to employment, unemployment and social insurance programs.

Job Sorting and the Labor Market Effects of a Criminal Record Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

How does criminal justice system involvement interact with labor market success? Recent evidence from Sweden informs our understanding of the negative effect of a criminal record on earnings + employment.

📖 Check out the working paper from Conrad Miller + coauthors: www.nber.org/papers/w33865

Alice Schmitz & the next generation of environmental economics research | Opportunity Lab Alice Schmitz is a fourth-year PhD student in UC Berkeley's Economics Department who is investigating the physical and economic damages from natural disasters. For the last two years, she has also ser...

💬 For two years, Alice Schmitz has participated in O-Lab + Energy Institute at Haas's Energy & Environmental Economics Mentorship Program. We sat down with Alice to discuss her approach to mentorship, plus her work measuring the effects of natural disasters: www.olab.berkeley.edu/profiles-con...

🧠 A recent working paper from Enrico Moretti & Harrison Wheeler uses data on the construction of noise-barriers + home prices to quantify the economic cost of traffic noise – and offer insight into the benefits of #EV adoption. #econsky #policysky eml.berkeley.edu/~moretti/noi...

Opportunity Lab Mailing List Thank you for your interest in the UC Berkeley Opportunity Lab! Please fill out the form below to receive updates on center activities, student and faculty research, events and funding opportunities,...

The evidence is clear: social safety net programs are one of the most effective tools for lifting children and families out of poverty.

📬 Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on safety net research: bit.ly/OLab-Newsletter

Childhood Medicaid Coverage and Later-Life Health Care Utilization Exploiting a discontinuity in childhood Medicaid eligibility based on date of birth, we find that more years of childhood eligibility are associated with fewer hospitalizations in adulthood. For black...

🤒 More chronic health issues will go untreated, resulting in disabilities that affect wages + jobs:

The Long-Term Effects of Early Life Medicaid Coverage In this study, we evaluate how an expansion of Medicaid coverage for pregnant women and infants affected the adult outcomes of individuals who gained access to coverage in utero and during the first y...

Evidence on Medicaid’s long-term benefits suggest that cuts would create long-term ripple effects beyond coverage loss.

🚨 Uninsured people will likely rely more on emergency rooms, stressing healthcare systems
🤰 Fewer people will access prenatal care, predisposing children to health conditions: