Cormac Odea News Today

White employees receive nearly twice as much in employer and tax subsidies for retirement saving than Black and Hispanic workers.

Better communication between spouses could translate to saving an average of almost $700 more every year, new MIT Sloan research shows.

One in four married couples leaves valuable retirement funds on the table by failing to claim employer matches in their 401 (k) plans, a study finds.

Yves here. Identifying the various mechanisms by which the rich pass their advantages to their offspring is an important line of inquiry. However, perhaps because it is hard to parse out for analytical purposes, one advantage of growing up in a wealthy household is acquiring class markers. For the British, it’s the posh accents (particularly the ones acquired at public schools) as well as learning skills that are typically expensive to acquire, like riding horses and skiing, or in the US, sai...

Q&A with Ben Polak: The former provost returns to teaching Monday, December 14, 2020 Ben Polak, the William C. Brainard Professor of Economics, stepped down as Provost in February 2020 after serving seven years in the position. He has rejoined his faculty peers in the department resuming his teaching. We asked Professor Polak what his time was like as Provost and how his time has been back in front of the class (albeit virtual this term).   As an economist, what strengths do you feel you brou...