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The Harvard Department of Economics has long tried to use scholarship to find answers for some of the world’s most pressing questions including the future of work, ending global poverty, and improving the environment. We believe nothing should limit the economist’s imagination.

You will be part of a program that includes people working in many fields, such as finance, economic history, behavioral economics, political economy, and many more. The program will prepare you for a productive and stimulating career as an economist. You will attend seminars given by top scholars from both domestic and international communities and will have access to over 13 million books and pamphlets from 90 separate library units at Harvard.

Examples of student research include how investor base composition is an important determinant of bond price dynamics and capital allocation outcomes in response to aggregate credit cycle fluctuations, and the long-term effects that temporary upstream steel tariffs on US manufacturing have on downstream industries.

Graduates have secured academic positions at prestigious institutions like MIT, Stanford University, and Yale University. Others have gone on to careers at organizations like the International Monetary Fund, Vanguard, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Amazon.

Additional information on the graduate program is available from the Department of Economics and requirements for the degree are detailed in Policies .

Admissions Requirements

Please review admissions requirements and other information before applying. You can find degree program-specific admissions requirements below and access additional guidance on applying from the Department of Economics .

Academic Background

Applicants should have an understanding of economics and have taken at least some economics courses beyond the principles level. Applicants should be able to demonstrate their ability to do research by either having done research previously or via experience as a research assistant. In the latter instance, a letter from the supervisor indicating the ability to do research is critical.

Writing Sample

A writing sample is required and must be no less than 15 pages.

Math Preparation

The minimum level of mathematical preparation to be considered for admission includes calculus and linear algebra and demonstration of proficiency with mathematics. Increasingly, successful applicants will have taken more mathematics classes. In particular, most successful applicants now take real analysis, although that is not a requirement.

Standardized Tests

GRE General: Required GRE Subject Test: Optional

Applying to More Than One Program

Harvard has several PhD programs that may also be of interest to students considering applying to the PhD program in economics. These include Business Economics , Public Policy , and Health Policy . Many students in these programs have considerable overlap in their coursework with courses offered to PhD students in economics. Many also have dissertation committees that include faculty members of the economics department.

We encourage those with interest in any of those programs to also apply to those programs. The Department of Economics will make admissions decisions independently, so application to or admission to other programs will not adversely affect admissions decisions within the department. However, please note that if you choose to apply to additional programs, you can only submit three applications to Harvard Griffin GSAS during the course of your academic career.

Campus Visits

The department arranges for campus visits for all admitted students and we cover a portion the costs associated with these visits. We do not encourage visits prior to being admitted. Since the department receives an overwhelming number of applications, it’s simply more efficient to arrange meetings with faculty after students are accepted rather than before.

Theses & Dissertations

Theses & Dissertations for Economics

See list of Economics faculty

APPLICATION DEADLINE

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The complete guide to getting into an economics PhD program

Back in May, Noah wrote about the amazingly good deal that is the PhD in economics. Why? Because:

• You get a job.
• You get autonomy.
• You get intellectual fulfillment.
• The risk is low.
• Unlike an MBA, law, or medical degree, you don’t have to worry about paying the sticker price for an econ PhD:  After the first year, most schools will give you teaching assistant positions that will pay for the next several years of graduate study, and some schools will take care of your tuition and expenses even in the first year. (See Miles’s companion post  for more about costs of graduate study and how econ PhD’s future earnings makes it worthwhile, even if you can’t get a full ride.)

Of course, such a good deal won’t last long now that the story is out, so you need to act fast! Since he wrote his post , Noah has received a large number of emails asking the obvious follow-up question: “How do I get into an econ PhD program?” And Miles has been asked the same thing many times by undergraduates and other students at the University of Michigan. So here, we present together our guide for how to break into the academic Elysium called Econ PhD Land:

(Note: This guide is mainly directed toward native English speakers, or those from countries whose graduate students are typically fluent in English, such as India and most European countries. Almost all highly-ranked graduate programs teach economics in English, and we find that students learn the subtle non-mathematical skills in economics better if English is second nature. If your nationality will make admissions committees wonder about your English skills, you can either get your bachelor’s degree at a—possibly foreign—college or university where almost all classes are taught in English, or you will have to compensate by being better on other dimensions. On the bright side, if you are a native English speaker, or from a country whose graduate students are typically fluent in English, you are already ahead in your quest to get into an economics PhD.)

Here is the not-very-surprising list of things that will help you get into a good econ PhD program:

• good grades, especially in whatever math and economics classes you take,
• a good score on the math GRE,
• some math classes and a statistics class on your transcript,
• research experience, and definitely at least one letter of recommendation from a researcher,
• a demonstrable interest in the field of economics.

Chances are, if you’re asking for advice, you probably feel unprepared in one of two ways. Either you don’t have a sterling math background, or you have quantitative skills but are new to the field of econ. Fortunately, we have advice for both types of applicant.

If you’re weak in math…

Fortunately, if you’re weak in math, we have good news:  Math is something you can learn . That may sound like a crazy claim to most Americans, who are raised to believe that math ability is in the genes. It may even sound like arrogance coming from two people who have never had to struggle with math. But we’ve both taught people math for many years, and we really believe that it’s true. Genes help a bit, but math is like a foreign language or a sport: effort will result in skill.

Here are the math classes you absolutely should take to get into a good econ program:

• Linear algebra
• Multivariable calculus

Here are the classes you should take, but can probably get away with studying on your own:

• Ordinary differential equations
• Real analysis

Linear algebra (matrices, vectors, and all that) is something that you’ll use all the time in econ, especially when doing work on a computer. Multivariable calculus also will be used a lot. And stats of course is absolutely key to almost everything economists do. Differential equations are something you will use once in a while. And real analysis—by far the hardest subject of the five—is something that you will probably never use in real econ research, but which the economics field has decided to use as a sort of general intelligence signaling device.

If you took some math classes but didn’t do very well, don’t worry.  Retake the classes . If you are worried about how that will look on your transcript, take the class the first time “off the books” at a different college (many community colleges have calculus classes) or online. Or if you have already gotten a bad grade, take it a second time off the books and then a third time for your transcript. If you work hard, every time you take the class you’ll do better. You will learn the math and be able to prove it by the grade you get. Not only will this help you get into an econ PhD program, once you get in, you’ll breeze through parts of grad school that would otherwise be agony.

Here’s another useful tip:  Get a book and study math on your own before taking the corresponding class for a grade. Reading math on your own is something you’re going to have to get used to doing in grad school anyway (especially during your dissertation!), so it’s good to get used to it now. Beyond course-related books, you can either pick up a subject-specific book (Miles learned much of his math from studying books in the Schaum’s outline series ), or get a “math for economists” book; regarding the latter, Miles recommends Mathematics for Economists  by Simon and Blume, while Noah swears by Mathematical Methods and Models for Economists  by de la Fuente. When you study on your own, the most important thing is to  work through a bunch of problems . That will give you practice for test-taking, and will be more interesting than just reading through derivations.

This will take some time, of course. That’s OK. That’s what summer is for (right?). If you’re late in your college career, you can always take a fifth year, do a gap year, etc.

When you get to grad school, you will have to take an intensive math course called “math camp” that will take up a good part of your summer. For how to get through math camp itself, see this guide by Jérémie Cohen-Setton .

One more piece of advice for the math-challenged:  Be a research assistant on something non-mathy . There are lots of economists doing relatively simple empirical work that requires only some basic statistics knowledge and the ability to use software like Stata. There are more and more experimental economists around, who are always looking for research assistants. Go find a prof and get involved! (If you are still in high school or otherwise haven’t yet chosen a college, you might want to choose one where some of the professors do experiments and so need research assistants—something that is easy to figure out by studying professors’ websites carefully, or by asking about it when you visit the college.)

If you’re new to econ…

If you’re a disillusioned physicist, a bored biostatistician, or a neuroscientist looking to escape that evil  Principal Investigator, don’t worry:  An econ background is not necessary . A lot of the best economists started out in other fields, while a lot of undergrad econ majors are headed for MBAs or jobs in banks. Econ PhD programs know this. They will probably not mind if you have never taken an econ class.

That said, you may still want to  take an econ class , just to verify that you actually like the subject, to start thinking about econ, and to prepare yourself for the concepts you’ll encounter. If you feel like doing this, you can probably skip Econ 101 and 102, and head straight for an Intermediate Micro or Intermediate Macro class.

Another good thing is to  read through an econ textbook . Although economics at the PhD level is mostly about the math and statistics and computer modeling (hopefully getting back to the real world somewhere along the way when you do your own research), you may also want to get the flavor of the less mathy parts of economics from one of the well-written lower-level textbooks (either one by Paul Krugman and Robin Wells , Greg Mankiw , or Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok ) and maybe one at a bit higher level as well, such as David Weil’s excellent book on economic growth ) or Varian’s Intermediate Microeconomics .

Remember to take a statistics class , if you haven’t already. Some technical fields don’t require statistics, so you may have missed this one. But to econ PhD programs, this will be a gaping hole in your resume. Go take stats!

One more thing you can do is research with an economist . Fortunately, economists are generally extremely welcoming to undergrad RAs from outside econ, who often bring extra skills. You’ll get great experience working with data if you don’t have it already. It’ll help you come up with some research ideas to put in your application essays. And of course you’ll get another all-important letter of recommendation.

And now for…

General tips for everyone

Here is the most important tip for everyone:  Don’t just apply to “top” schools . For some degrees—an MBA for example—people question whether it’s worthwhile to go to a non-top school. But for econ departments, there’s no question. Both Miles and Noah have marveled at the number of smart people working at non-top schools. That includes some well-known bloggers, by the way—Tyler Cowen teaches at George Mason University (ranked 64th ), Mark Thoma teaches at the University of Oregon (ranked 56th ), and Scott Sumner teaches at Bentley, for example. Additionally, a flood of new international students is expanding the supply of quality students. That means that the number of high-quality schools is increasing; tomorrow’s top 20 will be like today’s top 10, and tomorrow’s top 100 will be like today’s top 50.

Apply to schools outside of the top 20—any school in the top 100 is worth considering, especially if it is strong in areas you are interested in. If your classmates aren’t as elite as you would like, that just means that you will get more attention from the professors, who almost all came out of top programs themselves. When Noah said in his earlier post that econ PhD students are virtually guaranteed to get jobs in an econ-related field, that applied to schools far down in the ranking. Everyone participates in the legendary centrally managed econ job market . Very few people ever fall through the cracks.

Next—and this should go without saying— don’t be afraid to retake the GRE . If you want to get into a top 10 school, you probably need a perfect or near-perfect score on the math portion of the GRE. For schools lower down the rankings, a good GRE math score is still important. Fortunately, the GRE math section is relatively simple to study for—there are only a finite number of topics covered, and with a little work you can “overlearn” all of them, so you can do them even under time pressure and when you are nervous. In any case, you can keep retaking the test until you get a good score (especially if the early tries are practice tests from the GRE prep books and prep software), and then you’re OK!

Here’s one thing that may surprise you: Getting an econ master’s degree alone won’t help . Although master’s degrees in economics are common among international students who apply to econ PhD programs, American applicants do just fine without a master’s degree on their record. If you want that extra diploma, realize that once you are in a PhD program, you will get a master’s degree automatically after two years. And if you end up dropping out of the PhD program, that master’s degree will be worth more than a stand-alone master’s would. The one reason to get a master’s degree is if it can help you remedy a big deficiency in your record, say not having taken enough math or stats classes, not having taken any econ classes, or not having been able to get anyone whose name admissions committees would recognize to write you a letter of recommendation.

For getting into grad school, much more valuable than a master’s is a stint as a research assistant in the Federal Reserve System or at a think tank —though these days, such positions can often be as hard to get into as a PhD program!

Finally—and if you’re reading this, chances are you’re already doing this— read some econ blogs . (See Miles’s speculations about the future of the econ blogosphere here .) Econ blogs are no substitute for econ classes, but they’re a great complement. Blogs are good for picking up the lingo of academic economists, and learning to think like an economist. Don’t be afraid to  write  a blog either, even if no one ever reads it (you don’t have to be writing at the same level as Evan Soltas or Yichuan Wang );  you can still put it on your CV, or just practice writing down your thoughts. And when you write your dissertation, and do research later on in your career, you are going to have to think for yourself outside the context of a class . One way to practice thinking critically is by critiquing others’ blog posts, at least in your head.

Anyway, if you want to have intellectual stimulation and good work-life balance, and a near-guarantee of a well-paying job in your field of interest, an econ PhD could be just the thing for you. Don’t be scared of the math and the jargon. We’d love to have you.

Update:  Miles’s colleague Jeff Smith at the University of Michigan amplifies many of the things we say on his blog.  For a  complete  guide, be sure to see what Jeff has to say, too.

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Have questions about applying? Please check our FAQ page  before emailing us at [email protected] . We partner with Harvard Economics to connect prospective students from underrepresented groups with graduate student mentors. Details of this Application Assistance and Mentoring Program are available below.

Application requirements

The application to our doctoral program is open annually from September 15-December 15 for admission the following September. The application for September 2024 admission is now closed.

Your application is considered complete when you have successfully submitted the following requirements by the December 15 application deadline:

• Online application
• $75 application fee
• Scanned copy of college transcripts
• Three letters of recommendation
• TOEFL, IELTS, or Cambridge English Qualification (C1 & C2) test score (any one) for international students whose native language is not English
• The GRE is required as part of applications for the 2025-2026 cycle (for September 2025 admission)

To request a fee waiver, please complete MIT's application fee waiver form . You should carefully review the eligibility criteria prior to applying. A representative from MIT’s Office of Graduate Education will be in touch about the outcome of your request.

Transcripts

Please upload one copy of each transcript from all universities you have attended. If you're admitted to the program, we'll require you to have an official copy of your transcript(s) sent to us from the university's registrar. Your transcript will be verified upon receipt and any discrepancy between the transcript you uploaded and the official transcript will result in a withdrawal of our offer of admission.

Letters of recommendation

Letters must be submitted/uploaded by the letter writers by December 15. Please send the email request to your letter writers via the 'Letter Status' section in your application.

TOEFL, IELTS, or Cambridge English Qualification scores

International students whose first language is not English are required to submit   English language proficiency test scores unless they are a US citizen or permanent resident. The department will also waive the requirement for international non-native speakers of English who have spent three or more years studying in an accredited school or university where English is the language of instruction.  (Please note: verification of the institution’s language of instruction may be requested.)

We accept the following test scores:

• Cambridge English C1 Advanced
• Cambridge English C2 Proficiency

If you meet the criteria for a waiver, you can make a request to waive the English proficiency exam requirement on the online application, under the "test scores" section.

TOEFL, IELTS, and Cambridge English Qualification scores are valid or accepted for two years. Scores that expire while an application is under review will be considered valid.

Submitting your scores

Your online application will prompt you to attach a scanned copy of your test scores. Your scores must also be sent directly to MIT from ETS, IELTS, or Cambridge. MIT's school code for the TOEFL is 3514. The TOEFL code for the Department of Economics is 84. IELTS and Cambridge do not require a code. Please enter "Massachusetts Institute of Technology- Graduate Admissions."

Official scores must be received from ETS, IELTS, or Cambridge by December 15. Please take your proficiency exam of choice by November 30 to allow for proper reporting time. If your score report arrives shortly after the deadline, it will be accepted, but your application may not be reviewed until your scores are received.

Minimum score requirements

The minimum requirement for the TOEFL is PBT: 600, iBT: 100. The minimum requirement for the IELTS is 7.  The minimum requirement for the Cambridge English Qualifications is a CEFR score of 185.

Your online application will give you the option to attach a scanned copy of your test scores or a screenshot of the scores from the ETS website. You can also send a score report directly to MIT from ETS. MIT's school code for the GRE is 3514. The code for the Department of Economics is 1801.

To allow for your scores to arrive by the application deadline, you should take the GRE by November 30 to allow for reporting time.

Personal statement (optional)

We encourage applicants to include a statement of objectives/personal statement with their application, though it is not required. The statement is an opportunity to explain what makes you a good candidate for the program. You should describe why you wish to attend graduate school, what you would like to study, and any research experience. Describe one or more accomplishments you are particularly proud of that suggest that you will succeed in your chosen area of research. You can also share any unique perspective or life experience that would contribute to the program.   Statements are typically two single-spaced pages.

Application Assistance and Mentoring Program

Many students interested in an economics PhD experience disparate degrees of support in the application process. The Application Assistance and Mentoring Program (AAMP) aims to mitigate these gaps by helping students from underrepresented groups connect with a graduate student mentor in MIT or Harvard’s PhD economics programs.

Mentors can provide:

• Advice on graduate school and fellowship applications, including questions about the application process and feedback on application materials.
• Information about economics research, life as a PhD student or in an academic career, for students who are deciding whether a PhD in economics is the right choice for them.

The AAMP aims to increase the pipeline of diverse talent in economics PhD programs and welcomes participation from all groups underrepresented in economics, including but not limited to: Black, Hispanic-Latinx, Native American, low-income, and LGBTQ+ students, women, students with disabilities, and students who are the first in their families to go to college. The AAMP welcomes participation among students at various stages of their economics studies, including undergraduates and college graduates. The AAMP is open to students who are curious about the academic economics experience and interested in figuring out if it’s right for them. 

Interested participants should fill out the application linked below. We will accept applications until July 17, 2023. Mentorship will begin over the summer and continue through Fall 2023. Mentees who prefer to meet for a single “coffee chat” may indicate their preference on the form. We will do our best to match all interested applicants with a mentor; however, demand may exceed the availability of mentors.

Please note that the MIT / Harvard Economics AAMP is a volunteer-based, student-run program. This program is not considered part of the admissions process for the Economics PhD at MIT or Harvard, nor will any student's participation in the AAMP be considered by the Graduate Admissions Committee at either school.

Please direct any questions to [email protected] . To join the program, please click the link below to fill out the form.

Click here for the application form If you are a faculty, program advisor/coordinator, or student interested in being notified when 2024-2025 AAMP applications open, please fill out this form .

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Courses, Tutorials and Seminars

Does this course count for economics credit?  What courses automatically fulfill the writing requirement? Do you have questions about economics course offerings, courses that meet the writing or theory prerequisite requirement, or cross-listed/jointly offered courses? See below!

Course Specific Information

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General Information

Courses currently offered are listed on  my.harvard.edu

Economics Electives and Writing and Theory Prerequisite Requirements

PDF of 2023-2024 economics electives (updated 8/28/2023).

PDF of 2024-2025 economics electives (updated 3/27/2024)

We also have a sortable list , which includes a historical list of electives from 2017 onwards.

For previous year's writing courses, see our list of  historical list of writing requirement classes .

Other Courses that Get Economics Credit

There are several  other courses across the university for which Economics concentration credit or Economics secondary field credit would be awarded. Please note, instructor approval is required (and not guaranteed!) for these courses. To ensure that an approved cross-registered course gets counted for your Economics concentration, you will need to fill out  this petition  and have it signed by an advisor in office hours .

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Argument: The United States Has a Keen Demographic Edge

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The United States Has a Keen Demographic Edge

Competitors of the united states face plunging birthrates and social gloom..

• United States

U.S. politicians have begun to lament the country’s falling birthrate. Their concern is legitimate; The United States’ total fertility rate has fallen from a robust average of 2.12 births per woman in 2007 to less than 1.7 births per woman today . (Demographic experts generally identify 2.1 as the rate needed to keep the population stable absent immigration.) From a smaller tax base and a shrinking labor pool to higher pension burdens that could crowd out spending on things such as education and infrastructure, falling birthrates represent a looming social and economic drag on U.S. prosperity.

This discourse, however, misses key context—namely, that the demographic situations in China, Russia, and the European Union are an order of magnitude worse. Far from being a drag, the United States’ relatively strong demographic hand endows it with a key advantage in an age of great-power competition with China and Russia.

While the United States may be in demographic transition, its competitors are increasingly in demographic turmoil. Nowhere is this more apparent than China. In the span of less than a decade, its birthrate has plunged from 1.81 births per woman to 1.08, according to the official figures, placing it among the lowest anywhere. Chinese authorities anticipate a modest rebound , speculating that fertility rates will rise above 1.3 by 2035, a figure that would still spell demographic doom for the world’s second-most populous country.

But far from recovering, a confluence of demographic and social trends suggests that the Chinese birthrate still has further to fall.

Start with the fact that after decades of the one-child policy , there are dramatically fewer Chinese citizens able to have children in the first place. There are, for example, 216 million Chinese citizens in their 50s but just 181 million citizens in their 20s, meaning that the population is all but destined to fall since the pool of potential parents is now so much smaller.

Even worse, a societal preference for sons has created a severe shortage of women. There are a whopping 11.7 million more Chinese men in their 20s than there are women in the same age bracket. A small portion of this imbalance can be attributed to nature’s slight tendency for boys over girls at childbirth. (Some scientists speculate that human may have evolved this tendency to compensate for higher mortality rates for men later on in the life cycle.)

A much larger share of the imbalance, however, can be attributed to the many sex-selective abortions and the Chinese girls who were put up for adoption during the peak years of gender selection, before government efforts began to close the gender gap. Decades of the one-child policy, in short, have resulted in a shortage of young people and an even greater shortage of young women. Both factors condemn the country to continued demographic decline for the foreseeable future.

Despite the government’s best efforts to convince people to have babies, including a turn to patriarchal language under Chinese President Xi Jinping, new social realities also suggest that China’s ultra-low birthrates are here to stay. Chief among these is a newfound and ingrained cultural preference for small families, especially among the generation of people who grew up without siblings. Chinese women surveyed about their preferences, for example, reported an ideal family size that averages to just 1.7 children , far lower than almost everywhere else in the world. This means that even if Beijing was able to afford every woman the perfect conditions for raising a family, Chinese fertility would still be far below the threshold required to maintain population size.

Also worrying for China is the rise of the tangping —the “lying flat” movement —a social phenomenon observed among young Chinese emerging from the anomie resulting from both China’s long COVID-19 lockdowns and a hypercompetitive academic culture. The movement, which rejects typical societal expectations (parenthood included) as a form of quiet but defiant protest against the state, has been subject to heavy censorship but still seems to capture the prevailing mood among young people. It bodes poorly for their future procreation.

The most unheralded driver of China’s demographic decline, however, is its continued urbanization. This factor correlates with fertility perhaps more than any other; higher housing costs, more liberal social norms, and a new economic logic (extra hands to help with work on a farm become more mouths to feed in a city) all conspire to make urban families much smaller than rural ones.

China’s relentless urbanization, then, promises to act as a continued check on Beijing’s ambitions to raise birthrates. Most worrying for Beijing is the fact China has a lot of room left to urbanize: Less than two-thirds of Chinese citizens live in cities, compared to 81 percent of South Koreans and 92 percent of Japanese. Beijing will find efforts to raise the birthrate even harder as a greater share of the 34 percent of its citizens currently living in rural areas decamps to cities.

Russia’s population also promises to plummet, but it’s expected to do so for a slightly different set of reasons. Like China, Russia’s population growth is constrained by the smaller generation of people now entering adulthood, an echo of the tumultuous 1990s, when birthrates first collapsed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This reality means that the birthrate was already destined to fall due to the smaller pool of potential parents.

Unlike China, however, Russia has made this weak demographic hand even worse by starting a war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has locked Russia into a cycle of demographic decline in at least three ways. The first factor is death from the war itself, with many of Russia’s estimated 50,000 fatalities being from the same small generation—of those born in the 90s—that it can scarcely afford to lose. Second is the wave of emigration that the invasion and subsequent mobilization has caused, as many of the roughly 1 million Russians who have fled the war are in their prime childbearing years .

Above all, however, is the fact that military spending—which now stands at a record 6 percent of Russia’s GDP—has crowded out spending on education, health care, and other policies that induce family creation. Chief among these are the Kremlin’s generous natalist policies , which succeeded in meaningfully raising the birthrate and even led to a brief period of natural population growth from 2013 to 2016. But this is a far cry from 2021, when Russia’s population dropped by 1 million people—the opening shot in what will be a protracted period of decline.

Against this catastrophic backdrop in China and near-catastrophic backdrop in Russia, the United States’ relatively robust demography is a source of strength. It’s true that, like Europe, the United States is now entering an era of lower birthrates. But—buoyed by higher religiosity and strong Mormon and evangelical traditions that Europe lacks—this decline has been both more delayed and less dramatic than the precipitous drop seen across the EU .

The United Sates can also rely on its status as a first-choice destination for immigrants across the world, something that has propelled its continued population growth even as China and Russia have begun to decline. The United States’ world-beating universities and tech firms will continue to attract the world’s best and brightest while high wages and a tight labor market have incentivized an ever-growing number of lower-skilled migrants to arrive via the southern border.

While the United States will still have to adapt to realities such as higher pension obligations in the face of an aging population, it’s the inverted population pyramid seen in countries such as Russia and China that presents the greatest threat to productivity and growth.

Of course, Russia and China could yet climb out of the demographic holes that they have found themselves in. Both remain powerful autocracies that are potentially capable of corralling their people in ways that the United States and the West can’t—although encouraging population growth has, as autocracies such as Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania shows, often been far harder than limiting it.

But the United States shouldn’t discount its own strengths, chief of all the political and economic liberties that make it such an attractive location to move to and raise children in the first place. The United States will still have to contend with the numerous threats posed by Russia and China. Their falling populations, however, will make the job much easier.

Brent Peabody is a recent graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School.

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The Ugly Paradox Behind the West’s Demographic Problems

France’s pension reforms, Italy’s elder care robots, and Arkansas’s child labor all have one thing in common: a fear of immigration.

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The 'most important mentor' ever: Chris Edley, legal and education scholar, has died

Christopher Edley Jr. was restless and impatient when working to expand access to education. He explained complicated concepts with clarity and often self-effacing humor. One former U.S. president remembered his brilliant mind and kind heart. Colleagues and students called him the most important mentor they ever had. 

Edley, a prominent civil rights scholar who held posts at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley and senior titles under some of the most prominent Democrats in the U.S., died Friday morning at the Stanford University hospital in California, according to his wife, Maria Echaveste. He was 71.

Doctors have not determined a cause of death, Echaveste said.

Many recalled the breadth of his impact across multiple disciplines.

“He was extraordinarily respected in the academy but also in public policy and public service circles,” said Ann O’Leary, an attorney and political adviser who helped him to establish a program for economic mobility called the Opportunity Institute. “He was able to comfortably debate a law review article and equally be in the halls of the White House or the state capitol to explain those really complicated ideas” about racial and social equity. 

Civil rights leader and legal scholar at Harvard, UC Berkeley

Edley, a Boston native and second-generation Harvard Law School graduate, co-founded Harvard’s Civil Rights Project following a court ruling in the mid-1990s that targeted race-conscious admissions. He taught at Harvard law and simultaneously worked on affirmative action for President Bill Clinton, advising the White House on leading efforts to retain race-conscious admissions. He remained at Harvard for nearly a quarter century.

Edley later served as law school dean at UC Berkeley for nearly a decade. Under his leadership, the school erected facilities, created centers and increased student grants. More recently, he oversaw Berkeley’s education school as an interim dean. 

As a legal scholar, he had an immense impact in education and especially in educational equity, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law. His leadership was “transformative,” said Chemerinsky, who was Edley's classmate at Harvard Law. Chemerinsky said he relied on the former dean’s advice in navigating the bureaucracy at the University of California. 

Edley held policy and budget positions in the White House under presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

He served as assistant director of the White House domestic policy staff in the Carter administration, where his responsibilities included welfare reform, food stamps, child welfare, disability issues and Social Security.

He was a senior adviser to Clinton’s transition team and later worked as associate director for economics and government at the White House Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1995. In addition, he served as special counsel to the president and led the administration’s review of affirmative action programs.

White House stints starting early in his career

Edley held advisory positions in the presidential campaigns of Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, Howard Dean, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. After the 2008 election, he helped advise Obama’s transition team. The two met at Harvard Law School, where Edley was one of Obama’s professors.

Edley met his wife, Echaveste, during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room while they were both working at the White House. She served as Bill Clinton’s deputy chief of staff.

"I thought he talked too much," she said, laughing. "He would say he knew more than everybody in that room."

She added: "He did not have ... that insecurity that some of us have when we're in those places, those questions of 'do we belong?'" said Echaveste, a first-generation Mexican American and the child of farmworkers.

'A journey that must continue'

Echaveste loved his "intellectual curiosity" and their debates about various topics. He was supportive of her career as a lawyer and political official. As they raised their children, they would discuss ideas in the car after dropping them off at school. "We'd look at each other and say how lucky we are."

But Edley, who was Black and whose father also attended Harvard Law before him, had a distinct view on what it meant to exist as a person of color in the United States. Despite his achievements, his father struggled to get a job.

Edley was often behind the scenes in Washington, but people in leadership took note of his ideas.

“Chris Edley had a brilliant mind and a kind, good heart that he put to use to build a better, fairer, more just America,” Bill Clinton said in a statement.

“From his groundbreaking academic career to his service in multiple key roles in my administration, he always believed that law and policy are ultimately about people," the statement said. "He mastered the minute details but never lost sight of the big picture – giving more people the chance to live their best lives. He is gone far too soon, but his legacy will endure."

Edley’s interest in civil rights underpinned each of his professional chapters. And he consistently endeavored to make scholarship “practical and immediately impactful on public policy and the debates of the day,” O’Leary said. O’Leary largely credits Edley with salvaging affirmative action in the face of resistance throughout the 1990s. 

Reflecting on the Supreme Court’s undoing of affirmative action last year and ongoing pushback against diversity, equity and inclusion, O’Leary said Edley understood that generational change requires a team of people.

"In some sense, he was impatient and irascible and never satisfied that we were doing enough – because we weren't doing enough. The way to honor him is to keep at this work,” she said.

“This is a journey that must continue.”