Sloan Experts Blog on Hot Topics

Experts guides are part of a good university’s outreach program but when faculty experts shed light and offer facts on timely topics, that’s really good. The new MIT Sloan Experts Blog is doing just that.

Launched in February, the blog kicked off with Professor Tom Malone’s post on Solving Climate Change with Crowdsourcing, a commentary on the Climate CoLab project that has an online community of people worldwide “already creating, analyzing, and discussing detailed proposals for how to address global climate change.”

Recents posts probe the battle in Wisconsin between the governor and public-service employees. Professor Thomas Kochan offers facts that illuminate the issues including conflicting characterizations of public unions as either 1. the cause of states' and cities' financial challenges or 2. a scapegoat demonized by politicians who want to reduce workers' wages and rights. “The Wisconsin virus: Some facts to control the spread” offers some data.

John Minahan PhD '88, former pension consultant-turned MIT Sloan lecturer, takes on the intense politicization around whether public pension plans are adequately funded, especially whether current  actuarial rules can resolve that question. Read Debate about public pension plans should include understated funding levels for his take.

Read the MIT Sloan Experts Blog for these and other topics from Greece’s $100-plus billion bailout package last May t0 an overview of MIT Sloan Management Review’s articles about surprising sustainability boosts in a post-recession world.