Because Look at the Alternatives!

Recent Gallup polling shows that Americans believe government dysfunction, skyrocketing costs of living, economic inequality, and healthcare affordability are the most critical challenges facing our nation. At their core, all these problems stem from human thoughts and actions.

Solving these crises requires us to change these human factors. To change them, we must understand them. Reversing economic inequality or fixing broken government institutions depends on understanding the levers that drive human beliefs and behaviors. This is the domain of the social and behavioral sciences. Just like the natural sciences, the social and behavioral sciences seek accurate measurements and empirical descriptions to design effective, real-life interventions.

What happens if we look elsewhere for solutions? Imagine a world completely devoid of the social and behavioral sciences, where policy is guided strictly by alternative forces.

Read More

Setting the Record Straight: Why would you study companies in Tsarist Russia?

In this series, Why Social Science? gives social scientists whose research has been mischaracterized or misunderstood the opportunity to explain once and for all, “Why would you study that?”

Today’s entry comes from Amanda Gregg, Assistant Professor of Economics at Middlebury College, who is the Principal Investigator of a National Science Foundation grant “Corporate Law, Finance, and Productivity in Historical Perspective,” which supports the collection and analysis of firm-level data describing Russian corporations before the October Revolution of 1917.

Read More