Educators and caregivers are generally thoughtful about choosing books to read to their young children, or when selecting books for children to read themselves. They may look for books that entertain, educate, and otherwise incorporate values that they hold dear. However, if those values include race and gender diversity, they will have to search a little harder.

Children learn many things from the books they read, and some of the most important...

Interact with the charts below to compare out how race, gender, and age are represented in various categories of children's books throughout the last century.

Compare how race, gender, and age are represented in various categories of children's books throughout the last century.

With the aggregation of more and more data, and with improvements in machine learning methods, firms and policymakers have developed algorithms to help them make decisions. For example, banks and credit card companies use algorithms to make decisions relating to a consumer’s creditworthiness. The idea is not only to make accurate assessments but to also remove any prejudice or other qualitative errors that could occur when people make such high-stakes decisions.

For most young people and their parents who live in high-income countries, the decision to attend school is an easy one. School is universally available and free through high school, schooling is mandatory through the age of 16, and most jobs require at least a high school degree. Dropping out of school all but ensures a lifetime of relatively low income.

Kevin Murphy talks with Derek Neal, The William C. Norby Professor in Economics, about education policy and the economics of public investment in education.

In the months and years following the Financial Crisis and Great Recession of 2007-09, the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank engaged in a number of unconventional policy measures meant to forestall a further drop in economic activity and, ultimately, to ignite economic growth. One of those measures, forward guidance, was intended to stimulate current consumption by informing the public that interest rates would be kept inordinately low for an extended period and hence increasing their inflation expectations.