Doleac published an article in The Economic Journal in November titled “The Visible Hand: Race and Online Market Outcomes,” co-authored with Luke C.D. Stein, Arizona State University. The researchers conducted a year-long field experiment to measure the effect of race on market outcomes, selling iPods through online classified advertisements throughout the U.S. They discovered that not only do black sellers receive fewer and lower offers than white sellers, but their outcomes are particularly poor in markets with less competition, more racial isolation, or more property crime.

Gibbs received the 2014 Jean Flanigan Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Association for Education Finance & Policy (AEFP). She completed her dissertation, “Experimental and Quasi-experimental Evidence on the Impact of Full-day Kindergarten,” at the University of Chicago, and in her research, she found that full-day students outperform half-day students. The impact of full- or half-day placement is most noticeable in the literacy skills of pre-K students.

Gibbs published a chapter in Legacies of the War on Poverty, edited by Martha J. Bailey, University of Michigan, and Sheldon Danziger, President of the Russell Sage Foundation. The volume offers a balanced assessment of the War on Poverty, launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Gibbs’ chapter, “Head Start Origins and Impacts,” co-authored with Jens Ludwig, University of Chicago, and Douglas L. Miller, University of California, Davis, dispels the notion that the Head Start education program does not work. While its impact on children’s test scores does fade, the program contributes to participants’ long-term educational achievement and, importantly, their earnings growth later in life.

Olsen also published a chapter in Legacies of the War on Poverty with Ludwig called “Performance and Legacy of Housing Policies,” which examines how the rise in housing vouchers as part of assistance reduced the cost of providing good housing, making it possible to serve many more families with a given budget.

Bonnie led a statewide study reviewing Virginia’s emergency mental-health system, shedding light on persistent gaps in available services. The findings were presented in “A Study of Face-to-Face Emergency Evaluations Conducted by Community Services Boards in April 2013.” Bonnie also contributed to “Guns, Public Health and Mental Illness: An Evidence-Based Approach for State Policy,” released by the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy at a conference Bonnie hosted at Batten.

In his Journal of Public Affairs Education article, “A Confident Humility: MPP Students and the ‘Uses of History’”, McKee argues that the most obvious “uses” of history, such as historical literacy or decision-making tools, are less important than the reflective self-awareness that can be built through careful study of the past. He makes the case that, in particular, history builds familiarity with the long-term temporal frameworks of policy development, also helping students develop a critical sensibility about prevailing policy approaches.

In his essay “The Future of Drone Warfare,” published in the Harvard National Security Journal, Hitz describes the impact of the Predator Drone as “relentless NON-humanity.” The former Inspector General of the CIA under President George H.W. Bush argues that “as leaders of the world’s strongest democracy and a proponent of the rule of law, we must be conscious of the need to explain ourselves when we are as dependent as we have become on such an unanswerable, terrifying and heavy-handed weapon as the Predator drone.”

Patashnik teamed up with Julian Zelizer, Princeton University, to research “landmark reforms,” examining the rough road ahead for the current administration as it safeguards its first-term legislative victories, the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Act. In their article “The Struggle to Remake Politics: Liberal Reform and the Limits of Policy Feedback in the Contemporary American State,” which appeared in the American Political Science Association’s Perspectives on Politics, the scholars argue that policy feedback is shaped not only by the internal attributes of policies, but also by the interaction between policy-specific characteristics, the strategic goals of officeholders and clientele groups, and the political forces arising from a contentious and uncertain political environment. This past fall, Patashnik also received the University Jefferson Scholars Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Trawalter published an article in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology on “How ideological migration geographically segregates groups.” Along with co-authors Matt Motyl, Shigehiro Oishi, and Brian A. Nosek (University of Virginia), as well as Ravi Iyer (University of Southern California), she explores how people segregate themselves by ideology: When liberals live in conservative areas, they end up migrating to more liberal areas, and vice-versa. The authors posit that this migration may contribute to the rise in cultural, moral, and ideological segregation and polarization of the American electorate.

Warburg’s provocative memoir, Dispatches from the Eastern Front: A Political Education from the Nixon Years to the Age of Obama, is published this April, reflecting on a career in politics from Capitol Hill to the University of Virginia. Warburg reformed nuclear-energy policy during the Carter Administration, traveled to the Soviet Union as a senior staffer for Senate Democratic Whip Alan Cranston and crafted landmark human rights legislation. His latest book details these experiences and imparts lessons learned, concluding with an optimistic call to public service.