Explore all Articles

filter by–Region

filter by–Country

search by–Keyword

Opportunity Zones: Driver of Economic Development or Domestic Tax Shelter for the Rich?

09.10.19

Introduction to Opportunity Zones As part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Opportunity Zone (OZ) program was created as a mechanism to funnel investments into targeted low-income areas throughout the United States. Though the program was recently implemented, it has gained significant attention as a place-based policy that brings private-sector capital into […]

Development and Economic Growth

North Dakota’s Legacy Fund: Saving for the Future

11.13.18

BY BRYAN CORTES States with booming economies have the opportunity to set up tax revenue funds with interest that will provide for future generations. This summer in North Dakota, I learned this firsthand. As a Dukakis Fellow in office of the Governor of North Dakota, I was charged with conducting a balance sheet assessment for […]

Social Finance: Sorting Hope from Hype

08.9.14

BY JULIA FETHERSTON ADAM SMITH WOULD HAVE BEEN mystified by the bankers, government officials, analysts, and activists assembled in the City of London for the inaugural G8 Meeting on Social Impact Investment, a meeting convened at the behest of U.K. Conservative Party Prime Minister David Cameron. Smith, the pioneer of free market political economy, wrote […]

Making the Financial Sector Whole: Steve Lydenberg on Responsible Investment

07.15.14

Steve Lydenberg began his career in responsible investment in 1975, as he says, before “careers in responsible investment even existed.” He joined the now-dormant Council on Economic Priorities, one of the first organizations to investigate and publicize corporate misbehavior, to support his passion for writing off-Broadway plays. But in the 1980s, divestment from the apartheid […]

Call for Submissions


Join the HKS Student Policy Review—

to research, write, and learn about policy in a new way. We offer Harvard students an opportunity to engage with the most important policy issues of our time, across a whole range of topics and regions.