To welcome the new academic year: let’s vote!
For Tufts and other schools in Massachusetts, today’s start of the academic year coincides with a primary election for state and federal offices. The campaigns have made some effort at persuasion but most focus is on mobilization: recent elections have been decided mainly by turnout, by which people invest the time and effort needed to vote. This morning I’ll walk to my polling place before going in to the office but most Americans don’t have that luxury. Differences in turnout arise precisely because people face very different barriers to voting, which itself is one of the most important questions in American politics.
Starting the school year with an election seems fitting. I teach at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, where much of the agenda concerns what governments do. And in education, like politics, enthusiasm matters. It takes effort to get involved — so thank you for showing up, at Tufts or other schools. And if you’re lucky enough to have elections this academic year, thank you for voting.
Twitter (click photo for full profile)
- In recent years I've learned so much about #FoodPricesForNutrition. The short article below explains, from data in… https://t.co/OszojkXfJq about 3 days ago
Helpful newsletters
- Boston Network for Intl. Dev.
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- The Counter – ‘Fact and friction in American food’
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- Dani Nierenberg’s Food Tank
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Data & resources
- My list of resources (experimental)
- WB DIME data analysis handbook
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- The dataverse
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- Euromonitor – branded foods (library subscription)
- Gro Intelligence data
Favorite bloggers
- Parke Wilde – food policy
- Jess Fanzo – food systems
- Marc Bellemare – ag & food econ
- Chris Blattman – dev econ
- Jayson Lusk – ag & food econ
- Diane Coyle – economics books
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