Past Grants

Saki Bigio will examine how monetary policy affects lending by financial institutions that supports economic growth. He will develop a model that takes into account how financial institutions react to changes in monetary policy and use data on lending by major financial institutions to assess the model’s accuracy. The project’s findings will appear in a paper.

Andrew Krepinevich, James Thomas, and Thomas Mahnken will lead an effort to develop a defense strategy to secure U.S. interests in Eurasia. They and other colleagues will assess the security environment and trends in the theaters of Eurasia (Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia), examine technological and operational trends shaping military competitions with the major powers, craft defense strategies for each of the three theaters, and recommend a force structure and defense program capable of executing these strategies. The project’s findings will be presented in a series of monograths.

Vladimir Socor will edit and publish the Eurasia Daily Monitor, a daily report that will analyze key political, economic, military, and geopolitical events and trends in Eurasia.

Paul Kennedy will lead a program that supports graduate student research and field work on topics related to international history.

Janice Eberly and James Stock will lead an effort to examine the state of the American labor market and assess how short-term weaknesses and long-term trends affect the material wellbeing of employees and the vibrancy of the U.S. economy as a whole. They will commission research papers from leading economists on key labor-market issues, such as the labor-force participation rate of less-educated individuals and the ways changing family structure affects the labor market. The papers will appear in The Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.

Roland Fryer will direct the research program of the Harvard Education Innovation Laboratory (EdLabs). EdLabs will undertake a number of research studies, including an evaluation of an incentive program for school principals, an assessment of how performance data can be used by school leaders to improve student learning, and a survey designed to discover what factors differentiate those individuals who rise out of poverty from those who continue to live in poverty. The project’s findings will appear in a series of reports, papers, and policy briefs.

John Herbst will explore the extent to which an exodus of well-educated Russians might affect Russia’s economy and political development. He will conduct surveys and focus groups in order to analyze the nature of emigration during the rule of President Vladimir Putin, the demographic and attitudinal characteristics of the Russian émigrés who now reside in Western Europe and the United States, and the implications of emigration on Russian demographics and regime stability. The project’s findings will appear in a monograph and a policy paper.

Peter Pry will explore how best to improve U.S. preparedness against a natural or man-made electromagnetic pulse (EMP) event. He will work with federal policymakers, state legislatures and officials, and leaders of electrical utilities and other interested corporations to educate them about the EMP threat and possible solutions. He will also research and write analyses that describe progress and continuing obstacles to achieving EMP preparedness at the federal and state levels. The project’s findings will appear in a white paper, a book, and related briefings.

Ruth Ben-Artzi will write a book that analyzes the effectiveness of agreements on programmatic principles among major donor countries that are designed to advance best practices in foreign assistance.