Highlights: Economic Fairness
Revaluing Care
Our world is facing a crisis of care. The number of people requiring care is growing and our society persistently fails to recognize the value of that care.
Most human caregiving work is performed by women — overwhelmingly women of color — in either unpaid or severely underpaid positions. The essential benefits of this work to society, meanwhile, are not counted at all. Addressing this crisis demands a fundamental transformation in how we ascribe value.
This team sought to address the crisis of care in part by connecting with the “care economy” of Durham — an integrated economic and societal system that promotes the flourishing of humans, culture and the environment — to better understand its successes and challenges.
The team also investigated care-inclusive ways of viewing national economies and raised awareness by creating a simulation game.
Natalie Meltzer (master’s student in public policy) was a finalist for the Bass Connections Award for Outstanding Mentorship, and Zoe Macomber ’24 gave a lightning talk at the Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Showcase.
Hospital Pricing
Healthcare expenditure accounts for nearly one-fifth of the U.S. gross domestic product, yet healthcare costs remain ambiguous and confusing to patients and clinicians alike. Lack of transparency in healthcare pricing makes it difficult for patients to make informed decisions when seeking care.
In partnership with Yale University, this team collected and analyzed newly available pricing data to investigate the impacts of healthcare market concentration and pricing transparency for major surgeries, as well as compliance among healthcare institutions to the newly set pricing regulations.
Their findings will be used by care delivery organizations, patients and policymakers whose roles include antitrust legislation and healthcare system oversight.
This team was led by National Clinician Scholars Marcelo Cerullo and Yuqi Zhang, in partnership with Duke faculty in Trinity and Fuqua.
Predatory Lending
What policies and practices can help us avoid the next market crash?
There is little debate that subprime home loans originated by mortgage brokers and banks played a large role in the 2008 global financial crisis. This project, which has been running for four years, set out to deepen the public’s understanding of the policy and market dynamics in the run-up to the financial crisis. Through data, policy and historical analysis, team members focused on subprime loans.
The 2021-2022 team members augmented the project’s collection of oral histories by capturing the perspectives of activists who resisted predatory lending. The team also analyzed legislation, wrote legislative memos and created interactive timelines of important U.S. legislation at the state and national levels. One subteam, which began its work through a Data+ team, analyzed and visualized data to show how the housing market evolved in select states in the decade leading up to the 2008 crisis and the implication of state mortgage enforcement practices on the fallout.
Team members also produced a detailed case study to show how evolving dynamics in the broader mortgage market came to bear at one institution in the run-up to the crisis.
