On the Evidence

Latest Episodes:

31 | Building the Pipeline of Black Women in Economics Mar 11, 2020

Show notes

On this episode of On the Evidence, we check in with Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman and Fanta Traore a year after the group they co-founded, the Sadie Collective, held its inaugural conference about, for, and by black women in economics and related fields. Find more information about the Sadie Collective here: https://www.sadiecollective.org/

30 | Customized Employment for Workers with Disabilities Feb 26, 2020

Show notes

Since the early 2000s, federal policy has encouraged customized employment strategies to help people with significant disabilities secure paid jobs. Through customized employment, the relationship between the job seeker and employer is personalized so that the needs of both are met through negotiation of the worker’s job duties and flexible work arrangements. About eight years ago, the nonprofit SourceAmerica launched a new program called Pathways to Careers that combined several types of customized employment strategies, such as an assessment of program participants’ strengths (called Discovery), paid internships and work experiences, and post-employment career support. Pathways started with a pilot site in Clearfield, Utah, and expanded to four other sites in Massachusetts; Michigan; Virginia; and Ogden, Utah. Mathematica is conducting an evaluation of Pathways, which will be the focus of a webinar that Mathematica is hosting on March 11. On this episode of On the Evidence, Shane Kanady, the vice president of workforce development at SourceAmerica, and Noelle Denny-Brown, a senior researcher at Mathematica, discuss findings from Mathematica’s evaluation as well as what’s next for the Pathways program. A Q&A blog based on the interview is available here: http://ow.ly/uLcF50ywDm2 Register for the webinar on Pathways on March 11, 2020 here: http://ow.ly/b7Dt50ywDjQ Find more information about Mathematica’s research on the Pathways-to-Careers program here: http://ow.ly/pwpy50ywDgr

29 | Communicating About Your Policy Research Feb 12, 2020

Show notes

Today’s episode is about sharing and explaining policy research. After putting in the hours to collect the data, analyze the findings, and report on your results, how do you ensure that people outside of academia learn what you’ve found and understand why it matters? My guests for this episode are economists Jennifer Doleac and Kosali Simon, who recently participated on a panel about interpreting and translating the relevance of policy research at a research conference hosted by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. Jennifer is an associate professor of economics at Texas A&M University, the director of the Justice Tech Lab, and the host of the Probable Causation podcast (https://www.probablecausation.com/). She is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jenniferdoleac. Kosali is a professor at the Paul H. O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington as well as the associate vice provost for health sciences at Indiana University Bloomington. She is also on Twitter at https://twitter.com/KosaliSimon. Find an abridged and edited Q&A blog based on a transcript of this conversation at: https://mathematica-mpr.com/commentary/tips-for-boosting-the-reach-and-impact-of-policy-research

28 | What the Next Generation of Policy Researchers Is Studying Jan 29, 2020

Show notes

Every summer, Mathematica welcomes a handful of doctoral students to spend 12 weeks at one of our nine office locations, working on an independent research project that intersects with one or more of Mathematica's focus areas. On this episode of On the Evidence, we feature six short interviews with the 2019 summer fellows about the research questions they pursued and what they have learned so far. In most cases, the fellows are joined by a mentor from Mathematica. Find more information about Mathematica's summer fellowship program here: https://www.mathematica.org/career-opportunities/summer-fellowships What factors influence individuals' long-term care decisions? Guests: Selena Caldera, a doctoral student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and Julia Baller, a senior researcher at Mathematica (1:45 - 11:32) If Medicaid is more generous in reimbursing for home and community based services, does it encourage more beneficiaries with disabilities to live in their homes, rather than in a nursing facility? Guests: Sijiu Wang, a doctoral student at Health Services Research and Policy program in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Rochester, and Bob Schmitz, a senior fellow at Mathematica who retired at the end of 2019 (11:43 - 26:50) Did New York City's "fair student funding" reform lead to better outcomes for students with disabilities? Guests: Sana Fatima, a doctoral student in public policy at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and Mariesa Herrmann, a senior researcher at Mathematica, (26:55 - 36:55) How does reducing the cost of participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program affect takeup of the program and ultimately impact infant health? Guests: Leah Shiferaw, a doctoral student in economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Nan Maxwell, a senior researcher at Mathematica who retired at the end of 2019 (36:59 - 46:21) How can policy improve the quality of care that children receive in early childhood education and care programs? Guest: Katie Gonzalez, a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (46:26 - 1:02:31) How does Medicaid Managed Care impact hospitalization rates among people who are enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid? Guests: Rebecca Gorges, a doctoral student at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, and Andrea Wysocki, a senior researcher at Mathematica (1:02:36 - 1:17:44)

27 | Child Food Insecurity and Home Delivered Food Boxes Jan 08, 2020

Show notes

The federal government funds a variety of national nutrition programs to combat hunger among children and families, and yet roughly 37 million Americans were food insecure in 2018, and 6 million of them were children, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). In some parts of the country, food insecurity is made worse by a lack of accessible and affordable options. That is, if you live in a rural area with limited public transportation and no major supermarkets nearby, you may rely on smaller retailers with limited produce, higher prices, and lower quality food compared with a larger store that is farther away. On this episode of On the Evidence, we talk about a demonstration supported by a federal grant that used home-delivered boxes packed with fruit, vegetables, and other shelf-stable foods selected by registered dieticians to address food insecurity among children in Chickasaw Nation territory in rural Oklahoma. Our guest is Phil Gleason, a senior fellow at Mathematica, who helped evaluate the demonstration for the Food and Nutrition Service at the USDA. Phil and I spoke in Denver shortly before he presented findings from the evaluation at a 2019 fall research conference hosted by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, better known by the acronym, APPAM. The full report that Phil and his Mathematica colleagues submitted to the USDA is available here: https://www.mathematica.org/our-publications-and-findings/publications/evaluation-of-demonstration-projects-to-end-childhood-hunger-edech-the-chickasaw-nation Read an abridged and edited Q&A blog based on our conversation here: mathematica-mpr.com/commentary/home-delivered-food-boxes-reduced-food-insecurity-among-adults-but-not-children

26 | What If the U.S. Mandated Paid Family Leave? Dec 20, 2019

Show notes

One of the ways that the United States is an outlier among high-income industrialized nations is that it does not have a national paid family leave program. Some U.S. states and cities, however, have enacted paid family leave, and more are on track to do so in the next few years. For this episode of On the Evidence, we speak with Jeff Hayes, the program director of job quality and income security at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and a scholar in residence at American University. Jeff recently presented findings about what would happen if the U.S. implemented a paid family leave law based on some recent policy proposals. This episode is part of a series we recorded in Denver during the fall research conference hosted by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, better known by the acronym, APPAM. Find more information on the paper Jeff presented at the conference, as well as other papers discussed in the same panel session, here: https://appam.confex.com/appam/2019/webprogram/Session13031.html

25 | Soda Taxes in U.S. Cities Dec 18, 2019

Show notes

Since 2015, a handful of U.S. cities have begun taxing soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages. With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, economists from Mathematica, the University of Iowa, and Cornell University studied the impacts of those taxes on purchases, consumption, prices, and product availability. The project was the first to publish results on changes in children's consumption in U.S. cities with a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. It was also the first to publish results on impacts from Oakland's beverage tax. For this episode of On the Evidence, we spoke with Dave Jones, an associate director in the health unit at Mathematica, and Dave Frisvold, an associate professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Iowa, about the project's findings on sweetened beverage taxes in Philadelphia, Oakland, Seattle, and San Francisco. More information about their study is available here: https://www.mathematica.org/news/effects-of-sweetened-beverage-taxes-in-philadelphia-and-oakland-fewer-beverage-purchases This interview was one of a series conducted in support of the 2019 fall research conference hosted by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM). (Jones and Frisvold presented papers related to the beverage tax project at the conference.) Find other interviews related to APPAM's fall research conference here: https://www.mathematica.org/commentary/icymi-on-the-evidence-takes-on-appam

24 | Low Cost Experiments in Local Government Dec 11, 2019

Show notes

On this episode of On the Evidence, we talk about using behavioral nudges and low-cost experiments in local government. Our guests are Brendan Babb, the chief innovation officer and innovation team director for the municipality of Anchorage, Alaska, and Emily Cardon, head of research for the Behavioral Insights Team (BIT) in North America. To learn more about the case studies referenced in this episode, check out BIT's publications page (https://www.bi.team/our-work/publications/) and blog (https://www.bi.team/our-work/blog/). Cardon also mentions a forthcoming paper on reducing burnout among 911 dispatchers, which has since published. Find it here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336830004_Belonging_Affirmation_Reduces_Employee_Burnout_and_Resignations_in_Front_Line_Workers This episode is part of a series produced by Mathematica in support of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) and its fall research conference. More episodes affiliated with APPAM's fall research conference can be found here: https://www.mathematica.org/commentary/icymi-on-the-evidence-takes-on-appam

23 | Indigenous Communities and Policy Research Nov 25, 2019

Show notes

On this episode of On the Evidence, we talk about policy research by, about, and for indigenous communities. Our guests are Cheryl Ellenwood, a PhD candidate in the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona, and Laura Evans, an associate professor at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. We discuss efforts to build a community of policy researchers focused on issues important to indigenous communities, the need for more and better data on indigenous populations (collected in respectful ways), and the application of decolonization methodologies in policy research. This episode is part of a series produced by Mathematica in support of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) and its fall research conference. Summaries of the indigenous policy scholarship discussed at the conference are available here: https://appam.confex.com/appam/2019/webprogram/Session13239.html

22 | Nudging Students to Enroll in College Nov 21, 2019

Show notes

A growing body of research have found that small-scale behavioral nudge campaigns can get students to complete complex tasks, such as refiling for federal financial aid to attend college. But researchers don't yet know enough about why certain nudges have worked in the past or whether they would still work on a larger scale. On this episode of On the Evidence, we talk with Jenna Kramer, an associate policy researcher at RAND Corporation, and Kelly Ochs Rosinger, an assistant professor in the Department of Education Policy Studies at The Pennsylvania State University, about efforts to use large-scale nudges to increase college and financial aid applications, increase college enrollment, and bolster college students' persistence in completing college. This episode is part of a series produced by Mathematica in support of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) and its fall research conference. Kramer and Rosinger participated in an APPAM panel about scaling nudge interventions in post-secondary education. A summary of the panel as well as links to papers discussed in the session is available here: https://appam.confex.com/appam/2019/webprogram/Session12922.html To keep up with Kramer and Rosinger's work, follow them on Twitter. Kramer is @j_w_kramer and Rosinger is @kelly_rosinger.

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