As I was completing my MPP, a faculty member at Harvard Kennedy School had written to the chair of a prominent North American foundation, confident they would be interested in my work. The chair, a man of South Asian descent whom I shall call Mr. X, sent back a pat response: The proposal focusing on […]

This article reviews unethical business practices in restaurants and nail salons vis à vis undocumented Asian American employees and suggests policy solutions to protect their economic justice and equity. Introduction The issue of labor rights for undocumented workers is a recurring topic in American political discourse in which we rarely question the identity or demographics […]

  The COVID-19 pandemic has left more than half of humanity confined to their homes. Governments have asked and, in some cases, enforced that individuals stay home based on the assumption that their citizens face the fewest health risks there. This is not always the case. Many governments have forgotten an already vulnerable group – […]

Madagascar is strewn with remnants of the French colonial period. From its French-style colonial architecture to its prized French restaurants, traces of the colonial era abound. One relic of the French colonial era that continues to significantly affect life in Madagascar is the country’s language and education system. In Madagascar, both Malagasy and French are […]

After decades of languishing as one of the nation’s least effective public education systems, New Mexico is making significant strides toward becoming a model for public education. Visionary leadership from Governor Lujan Grisham has resulted in significant investments in New Mexico’s chronically underfunded public schools, with state policymakers increasing spending on public education by approximately […]

It’s common to hear a disapproving sigh anytime I tell someone I’ll be working in management consulting after HKS. I’m grateful to have a job, especially now during these challenging economic times. Before I accepted the offer, however, I kept asking myself: how could I, as someone who cares about public service, possibly work in […]

How do you think the common challenges of Latin America have changed in the past twenty years? In the early 2000s we were discussing the middle-income trap and how to deal with the dependency of commodities of Latin America. One of the aspects that has changed in the last twenty years has been the perception […]

Quad Research conducted a survey from 1-4 April 2020 on Singaporeans’ perceptions on a range of societal issues and how their views impact their political choices. This executive summary details some of their research findings.

Diet-related diseases are the leading cause of death in the United States. Poor diet is associated with ailments such as heart disease, cancer, and Type 2 diabetes, which together kill nearly 678,000 Americans annually — a number that far exceeds current projected deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S.[i] Having worked in both the farming and […]

In approximately 500 B.C., The Greek city of Sybaris encouraged inventors to register their creations with a grant of monopoly for one year. Thus began human civilization’s practice of patenting, a system that is now synonymous with free markets. Now as the world waits with bated breath for a pharmaceutical lab to develop a vaccine […]

COVID-19 exposes injustice in the workforce. Frances Perkins offers a model to fix it. We are only beginning to understand the economic repercussions of COVID-19. In less than two months, more than 30 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, eliminating all of the jobs gained since the 2007-2009 Great Recession. The pandemic has brought unprecedented […]

Poh Yong Han argues that while addressing poor dormitory and food standards for migrant workers are important, they merely represent the tip of the iceberg. Unless we tackle the underlying structural issues that explain why migrant workers “consent” to such poor standards (low wages, high agency fees) in the first place, we are not addressing the root cause of the problem. To address them, she proposes setting a Minimum Income Threshold, and enforcing fair recruitment practices. She further suggests reconsidering whether the Work Permit scheme as it stands is even ethical, and asks if current restrictions (such as tying workers to specific employers) need to be loosened, and whether a fairer migrant worker policy would entail providing them with pathways to citizenship or residency.