National Affairs

National Affairs is a quarterly publication that features essays focused on domestic policy, political economy, societal issues, culture, and political philosophy. Its goal is to encourage Americans to think clearly about public matters and to enhance their ability to engage in self-governance. Housed at the American Enterprise Institute, the journal includes contributions from a wide range of authors, including academics, journalists, policy specialists, and political professionals, each bringing their unique perspectives. While the journal has a consistent viewpoint, it does not adhere to any specific political party. It is rooted in a confident and proud vision of America, believing that our strengths can help us tackle our weaknesses. Key strengths highlighted include our democratic capitalism, our commitment to liberty and equality under the law, and our ties to Western traditions. Each issue presents engaging yet serious essays covering a variety of domestic topics, from economics and healthcare to education and welfare, as well as current legal debates and persistent societal challenges. The journal pays special attention to the fundamental theoretical questions surrounding American self-governance, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom, clarify complex issues, provide actionable proposals, and highlight influential ideas in politics. In this effort, we draw inspiration from The Public Interest, a journal that significantly contributed to public discourse with its clarity and insight for many years. Our hope is to offer similar support to Americans as they navigate the challenges of a new era and to provide a platform for emerging thinkers and writers eager to impact national discussions.

National

English

Journal

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Ranking

Global

#535841

United States

#183760

Law and Government/Law and Government

#421

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Articles

Physical Reality

2 days ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

June 24, 2025 Racial Disparities in Mortality by Sex, Age, and Cause of DeathRobert Kaestner, Anuj Gangopadhyaya & Cuiping SchimanNBER Working Paper, June 2025Abstract:Racial differences in mortality are large, persistent and likely caused, at least in part, by racism. While the causal pathways linking racism to mortality are conceptually well defined, empirical evidence to support causal claims related to its effect on health is incomplete.
Regime Learning

4 days ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

June 23, 2025 Democracy as a competitive discovery processNick Cowen, Eric Schliesser & Aris TrantidisEuropean Journal of Political Economy, forthcomingAbstract:Actors within democracies and markets exhibit opportunistic behavior and frequently pervasive ignorance. But the debate on whether these social systems can handle these problems is polarized.
Raising Concerns

4 days ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

June 22, 2025 Socioeconomic Status, Genotype, and the Differential Effects of Parental Separation on Educational AttainmentFabrizio Bernardi & Gaia GhirardiDemography, forthcomingAbstract:Prior research has consistently documented a more pronounced negative impact of parental separation on educational attainment among children from families with high socioeconomic status (SES).
Millennial Ambition

4 days ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

June 21, 2025 Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersalEmily Hallett et al. Nature, forthcomingAbstract:All contemporary Eurasians trace most of their ancestry to a small population that dispersed out of Africa about 50,000 years ago (ka). By contrast, fossil evidence attests to earlier migrations out of Africa. These lines of evidence can only be reconciled if early dispersals made little to no genetic contribution to the later, major wave.
Ideological Intelligence

1 week ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

June 20, 2025 Hatred Takes An Ideologue: Recognizable Belief Patterns Lead to More Animosity and DisagreementTadeas CelyPolitical Behavior, forthcomingAbstract:An expanding body of evidence indicates that substantive disagreement fuels political animosity. However, pundits often use terms like ’ideological disagreement’ to describe a broad range of phenomena, diverging from how the concept is understood in classical Conversian literature on beliefs and their structures.
Corporate Decisions

1 week ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

June 18, 2025 In Too Deep: The Effect of Sunk Costs on Corporate InvestmentMarius GuenzelJournal of Finance, June 2025, Pages 1593-1646Abstract:Sunk costs are unrecoverable costs that should not affect decision making. I provide evidence that firms systematically fail to ignore sunk costs and that this leads to significant investment distortions.
How Disparate

1 week ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

June 19, 2025 Estimating wage disparities using foundation modelsKeyon Vafa, Susan Athey & David BleiProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 3 June 2025Abstract:The rise of foundation models marks a paradigm shift in machine learning: instead of training specialized models from scratch, foundation models are trained on massive datasets before being adjusted or fine-tuned to make predictions on smaller datasets.
God Knows

1 week ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

June 17, 2025 Whatever happened to new atheism? The rise and fall of the U.S. atheist movementSteve KettellPolitics and Religion, forthcomingAbstract:The first decade of the twenty-first century saw the rise of a phenomenon known as new atheism. In recent years the visibility of new atheism has waned, but scholarly research into the causes of this decline remain limited. This paper examines the rise and fall of new atheism within the broader context of the U.S. atheist movement.
Healthy Money

1 week ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

June 16, 2025 Medicare Drug Price Negotiations May Not Reduce Patient Cost Sharing for Most Users of Targeted DrugsDebra Lederman, Alexander Olssen & Mark PaulyNBER Working Paper, June 2025Abstract:This paper studies two major changes in the financing of Part D drugs for Medicare due to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
A Couple of Issues

1 week ago | nationalaffairs.com | Kevin Lewis

Findings June 15, 2025 The Optimal Taxation of CouplesMikhail Golosov & Ilia KrasikovQuarterly Journal of Economics, forthcomingAbstract:We study optimal nonlinear taxation of single and married households. Taxes on couples depend on the earnings of both spouses and are an example of multidimensional tax schedules. We develop novel analytical techniques to study properties of such taxes.