Kevin Lewis, National Affairs Journalist Profile

Articles

Friends at the Party

1 week ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

May 30, 2025 Durably reducing partisan animosity through multiple scalable treatmentsMatthew Hall et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 13 May 2025Abstract:Recent research has identified several effective strategies for reducing Americans’ animosity toward supporters of opposing political parties. However, whether these strategies can durably reduce partisan animosity in a scalable manner and in everyday life remains unclear.
Market Factors

1 week ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

May 29, 2025 Price Agnostic DemandSamuel Hartzmark & Abigail SussmanUniversity of Chicago Working Paper, April 2025Abstract:We document that investors lack conviction as to what the market price should be (absent seeing it). This is at odds with standard asset pricing models, which assume that investors are uncertain about the future, but understand what the current market price should be and whether the actual price is different from this.
Social Studies: Keep your AI usage to yourself; female role models in politics; suspicious activity at the IRS

1 week ago | bostonglobe.com | Kevin Lewis

Do not talk about relying on AI unless you know your audience wants to hear it. A survey found that people expect to be perceived as lazier and less competent if they reveal that they used AI for an information-related job task instead of a non-AI software tool. This fear is justified, given that another survey found that people judge employees of various white-collar occupations to be lazier and less competent if they ask AI for help instead of asking a coworker.
Who Makes What

1 week ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

May 28, 2025 The 2025 Trade War: Dynamic Impacts Across U.S. States and the Global Economy Andrés Rodríguez-Clare, Mauricio Ulate & Jose Vasquez NBER Working Paper, May 2025 Abstract: We use a dynamic trade and reallocation model with downward nominal wage rigidities to quantitatively assess the economic consequences of recent U.S. tariff increases on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China, as well as the "reciprocal" tariff changes announced on "Liberation Day" and retaliatory measures by...
National Treasure

1 week ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

May 27, 2025 Social Security and Trends in Wealth InequalitySylvain Catherine, Max Miller & Natasha SarinJournal of Finance, June 2025, Pages 1497-1531Abstract:Recent influential work finds large increases in inequality in the United States based on measures of wealth concentration that notably exclude the value of social insurance programs. This paper shows that top wealth shares have not changed much over the last three decades when Social Security is properly accounted for.
Strategy and Tactics

1 week ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

May 26, 2025 On Nuclear Superiority and National SecurityAlexandre DebsJournal of Conflict Resolution, forthcomingAbstract:Does nuclear superiority improve national security? The Theory of the Nuclear Revolution (TNR) argues that it does not, but only after assuming that the nuclear balance is irrelevant militarily. Critics argue that it does, pointing at U.S. efforts to achieve nuclear superiority in the Cold War, when the nuclear stalemate was less stable than previously thought.
Millennial Knowledge

1 week ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

Findings May 24, 2025 Learning like a state: Organizational learning and state capacity in ancient GreeceFederica Carugati & Mark PyzykJournal of Institutional Economics, May 2025Abstract:State capacity is critical for development. Yet, the question of how states learn -- that is, how they acquire and incorporate information to improve performance over time -- has received little attention.
Getting Voters

1 week ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

May 23, 2025 The Effects of Political Advertising on Facebook and Instagram before the 2020 US ElectionHunt Allcott et al. NBER Working Paper, May 2025Abstract:We study the effects of social media political advertising by randomizing subsets of 36,906 Facebook users and 25,925 Instagram users to have political ads removed from their news feeds for six weeks before the 2020 US presidential election.
Diverse Diversity

2 weeks ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

May 22, 2025 Context Norms Shape Perceived Motives of Organizational Diversity StatementsKimberly Chaney et al. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcomingAbstract:Diversity statements have become common practice for organizations; might this norm backfire for norm-adhering organizations? The present research examines if awareness of diversity statement norms across organizations leads to perceptions of an organization’s diversity statement as mere norm adherence.
Simple Regimes

2 weeks ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

May 21, 2025 Networks of coercion: Military ties and civilian leadership challenges in ChinaTyler Jost & Daniel MattinglyAmerican Journal of Political Science, forthcomingAbstract:Civilian-led coups are one of the most common routes to losing power in autocracies. How do authoritarian leaders secure themselves from civilian leadership challenges? We argue that autocrats differentiate civilian rivals in part by their social ties to the military.