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Philanthropic contributions support our ability to take the long view, tackle tough and often-controversial topics, and share our findings in innovative and compelling ways. RAND's research findings and recommendations are based on data and evidence, and therefore do not necessarily reflect the policy preferences or interests of its clients, donors, or supporters.
This report provides an initial assessment of the possible short-term economy-wide effects of social distancing. These results should be taken as rough order-of-magnitude estimates meant to help inform decisionmakers during the coronavirus disease 2019 crisis.
There is an urgent need for an assessment of public health interventions to address coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and determine when to relax them. This document describes the COVID-19 Decision Support Tool, which is designed to fill that need.
Contending with and preparing for the effects of climate change is a critical global challenge that will shape the security landscape over the next 20 years. By examining the role of collaboration in military and local government climate resilience planning, the authors find that collaboration improves collective capacity to address climate change, and their analysis provides insight into the attributes of effective joint planning.
This report, the second edition of an earlier work, synthesizes the available scientific evidence for the effects of various firearm policies on firearm deaths, violent crime, the gun industry, defensive gun use, and other outcomes. The authors highlight policies whose effects are better supported by evidence and areas where more and better information could contribute to establishing fair and effective gun policies.
Young women in Egypt face substantial inequalities in job opportunities and wages. In this report, the authors examine issues (such as childcare costs, negative attitudes, and sexual harassment) that constrain women's employment and could hinder improvement of Egypt's economic outlook. The authors also consider initiatives that are underway to address these challenges and present policy considerations to build on these efforts.
Growing concern that U.S. power has been declining renews long-standing questions about how we should measure national power, which nations have the most, which states are gaining and losing power, and when such shifts might portend conflict. The authors illustrate a quantitative, scenario-based approach for policymakers, assess the impact of shocks on the balance of power, and identify periods when shifts in the balance could portend conflict.
The author of this Perspective argues that the United States should make a full and enduring commitment to Iraq by providing robust, long-term assistance to the Iraqi Army, and should do so in 2020, before fleeting opportunities are lost.
The authors of this report explore the risks posed by the development of quantum computers able to crack digital encryption by assessing how quickly quantum computers are likely to be developed, how quickly postquantum cryptography (PQC) that can withstand attacks is likely to be standardized, and how quickly and widely PQC will be adopted. The analysis concludes that the threat to the communications infrastructure is urgent but manageable.
A Microsoft Excel–based tool that allows decisionmakers at all levels — hospitals, health care systems, states, regions — responding to the COVID-19 crisis to estimate current critical care capacity and rapidly explore strategies for increasing it.
In this report, the authors present strategies for creating critical care surge capacity and estimate the number of patients accommodated, given the number of available critical care doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists, ventilators, and hospital beds. They also document the development of a user-friendly tool that allows decisionmakers to estimate current critical care capacity and rapidly explore strategies for increasing it.
The unclassified networks of defense industrial base firms have become an attractive entrance for adversaries seeking access to cutting-edge technologies and research and development efforts. This report describes a way for the U.S. Department of Defense to better secure such networks through the establishment of a cybersecurity program designed to strengthen their protections.
There is interest among U.S. policymakers in using out-of-network payment limits to control rising health care spending. RAND researchers estimated the effects that four proposed out-of-network payment limits for hospital care—125 percent of Medicare payments, 200 percent of Medicare payments, state average payment by private plans, and 80 percent of billed charges—would have on negotiated in-network prices and total payments for hospital care.
In this report, the authors explore approaches for understanding, inventorying, and modeling cybersecurity implications of the rapid growth in drone usage, focusing specifically on current vulnerabilities and future trends. The authors propose conceptual approaches meant to enable the enumeration and categorization of drone-related cyber threats and explore some of the potential benefits and challenges of modeling the commercial drone threat.
In this Perspective, the authors review potential benefits and drawbacks of online outsourcing, including microwork and freelancing, with special reference to its potential for youth employment and poverty reduction in Indonesia. Although there are many constraints to the growth of online outsourcing, Indonesia's favorable business environment and large economy suggest that there is also significant potential for expansion of online outsourcing.
After a decade of focus on financial firms, new analysis using an innovative approach and new dataset shows that firms in a diverse range of sectors, such as technology and telecommunications, pose a systemic risk to the economy at large.
This report examines the potential economic implications of prolonged trade policy uncertainty associated with the renegotiation period between the UK and EU after Brexit. It is estimated that by the end of the initially planned transition period in 2020, UK GDP could be 0.17 percentage points lower compared to if the UK was not in a renegotiation period about its future trading relation with the EU. Equivalent to a GDP loss of about $5.5bn.
Following the 2008 financial crisis, significant attention was paid to systemic risk within heavily interconnected financial networks, but little attention was paid to systemic risks in the economy at large. The authors of this report address that gap, detailing efforts to gather large data sets on observed interfirm linkages, procedures to infer missing data on network linkages, and an approach to calibrate likely connections to financial data.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) increasingly relies on electric power to accomplish critical missions. This report explores two approaches for deterring attacks against the U.S. power grid in a world of increasing cyber aggression: deterrence by denial and deterrence by cost imposition. It is a first step in developing frameworks and context to support DoD decisionmaking in this area.
This report explores how the expected value of workers' compensation benefits interacts with the decision to settle a claim. The authors analyze the relationship between the expected value of benefits and the probability of settlement before and after a 2005 policy in Oregon that changed the value of permanent disability benefits. The findings do not show evidence that changes in potential benefit values result in strategic decisions to settle.
In this Perspective, the authors review the current scoping and operation of global health security, identify emerging threats, and assess how adequately current visions of global health security account for these threats. A broader definition of global health security should be considered, as well as greater systematic focus on the complex interlinkages among human physical and mental health, animal health, and the environment.
In this report, the authors use survey data to explore how U.S. media consumers use news platforms (e.g., print, television, social media, internet), the relationships between these profiles, and consumers' perceptions of the reliability of news. Findings include that consumers are mixed in their perceptions of news reliability and that partisanship broadly shapes news consumption behavior and willingness to seek differing viewpoints.
According to the author, stakeholder surveys address a broad range of topics related to school and classroom climate. Some types of surveys can be used for teacher-level feedback.
The author defines student growth percentiles (SGPs) and discusses how they are used to rank student test-score growth compared with peers and to produce a score for a teacher.
The author discusses the use of value-added models (VAMs) to estimate teacher contribution to student progress, account for students' prior characteristics, and enable relative judgments, as well as the limitations of VAMs.
Research shows that teachers matter for both test and nontest score outcomes. Teachers who excel at raising test scores do not necessarily excel at improving other outcomes.
