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In this lecture, Professor Milkman will discuss three massive field experiments testing dozens of different ways of encouraging increased vaccination. First, she will discuss a “megastudy” encouraging flu vaccination at doctor’s appointments among 47,306 patients of two large U.S. health systems in which 42 scientists worked in teams to design a total of 19 different text reminders using a variety of different behavioral science principles.

In this lecture, Professor David Broockman explores how Americans are politically polarized, why–and why not–this matters, and potential solutions. Professor Broockman discusses how his research has challenged conventional wisdom on: (1) to what extent Americans’ frustrations with government result from politicians being too extreme, (2) to what extent voters’ dislike of each other–so-called affective polarization–contributes to the nation’s political challenges, and (3) how we all can have more productive and persuasive conversations with our political rivals.

Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and facilitating adaptation to climate change requires effective public investments, yet many policies and programs lack crucial evidence of their effectiveness. In low and middle income countries, the cost of putting resources toward ineffective policies is particularly high. This talk discusses two recent randomized controlled trials aimed at filling the evidence gap. The first tests novel approaches to reduce agricultural emissions in India. The second improves smallholder farmers’ resilience to climate shocks in Niger. Findings highlight the need for piloting before scaling up policy — in both projects, cost effectiveness was improved through innovative policy design.

The report leading to the creation of the SSRC in 1923 outlined several major challenges for social science: data collection, interpretation, measurement, and causality. This lecture will explore the extent to which newly available administrative datasets — linked together to create what is sometimes referred to as “big data” — can help address these challenges and contribute to our understanding of the causes and consequences of eviction and poverty in the United States. The lecture will draw heavily on a study of eviction in Chicago and New York, which is joint work with Robert Collinson, John Eric Humphries, Nick Mader, Davin Reed and Daniel Tannenbaum.