Past Grants

Daniel Gouré will develop a long-term competitive strategy to deter Russia’s potential hybrid and conventional aggression against the United States and its NATO allies. He will identify and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of NATO and Russia, develop policy ideas to align NATO’s strengths against Russia’s weaknesses, and explore how the competition between these two sides might unfold. The project’s findings will appear in a report.

Christopher Kolenda will research and write a book that examines why recent U.S. interventions in the Middle East have failed to achieve favorable and durable outcomes. He will explore the extent to which these conflicts were shaped by the failure to plan for conflict termination, the challenges of modifying a failing strategy, and flagging domestic support.

Raj Chetty, John Friedman, and Nathan Hendren will lead an effort to examine the extent to which a variety of public policies can promote or hinder upward mobility. Drawing on data from tax returns, they will measure the extent to which college enrollment promotes economic mobility and assess how the receipt of Social Security Disability Insurance affects the employment and earnings of adults and their children. The project’s findings will appear in a series of papers and short articles.

Marisa de la Torre, Lauren Sartain, and Lisa Barrow will examine whether improving access for children from low-income backgrounds to highly competitive public schools can be an effective strategy to increase student achievement. They will examine the extent to which enrollment of highachieving students from low-income backgrounds in one of Chicago’s selective high schools affects student performance on a wide range of outcomes, including test scores, grades, and attendance. The project’s findings will appear in a report and a series of papers.

Murray Hiebert will research and write a book assessing China’s efforts over the past decade to project its influence in Southeast Asia. He will conduct field work in Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, and China in order to develop a systematic assessment of the effects of China’s projection of political and economic influence in the region.

Andrew Hoehn and Andrew Parasiliti will lead an effort to consider how the policy community might better anticipate discontinuous change in the security environment. They will convene a workshop where analysts will examine how the evolution of world politics might diverge from a straightline projection of current trends. The project’s findings will appear in a report.

Todd Rogers will direct an experimental evaluation of an intervention designed to help adults play a more active role in supporting educational achievement among low-income children. He will partner with three school districts to evaluate the My Student’s Team intervention, which enlists adults other than a child’s parent to become mentors to students. The mentors will receive regular updates on the performance of their mentees along with tips on engaging them about their performance, areas in which they are struggling, and positive study habits. The project’s findings will appear in a report and a series of shorter briefs.

Anders Åslund will examine the Russian economy under Putin in order to better understand its potential political evolution. He will analyze U.S. and Russian primary and secondary source materials on the Russian economy, convene a study group of U.S. experts on Russia, and conduct field work in Russia.

Tally Helfont and Barak Mendelsohn will lead an effort to develop potential policies to bring about the political-military stability of the territory once controlled by the Islamic State. They will direct a team of researchers to explore how the next phase of the competition between jihadi groups and the states of the region might evolve. They will examine Arabic-language jihadi commentaries and analyses as well as the thinking of U.S. policymakers with respect to the continuing political-military competition in areas formerly occupied by the Islamic State. The project’s findings will appear in a monograph as well as a volume of the journal Orbis.