Article by David Mathias and Rachel Supnick Sitting just east of Los Angeles, the Inland Empire is a metropolitan region consisting of San Bernardino and Riverside counties. It is the 12th largest Metropolitan Statistical Area in the United States by population and has expanded both economically and spatially in part due to its growing logistics […] The post Logistics in the Driver’s Seat: Congestion as a Cost of Increased Warehousing appeared first on The Lowe Down ..read more

Article by Noah Hendelman and Meghna Pamula In March 2021, the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in the nationwide transition from in-person school to online learning. This transition resulted in a “learning loss” as students struggled with Wi-Fi trouble, screen fatigue, social isolation, and other consequences of remote education. Coming out of the pandemic, a prevailing narrative was that wealthier children and students who quickly returned to in-person instruction were largely isolated from learning loss. We seek to determine the extent to which variation in household income and length of school ..read more

Article by Armine Kardashyan’26   Despite low unemployment, an increasing labor force participation rate, and robust GDP growth this year, US consumers are still pessimistic about the state of the economy. Is consumer sentiment becoming disconnected from economic fundamentals or do consumers simply weigh recent inflation more heavily than these other positive indicators? To address this question, I conducted an analysis of the historical determinants of US consumer sentiment to determine whether recent pessimism is different, or whether it is simply the usual reaction to an economy in th ..read more

Article by Rutvij Thakkar’26 After the Fed contended with October’s inflation report, economist Paul Krugman declared that the “war on inflation is over.” – while this war and subsequent victory wasn’t necessarily defined, it’d be fair to say that most Americans don’t feel like the sting of inflation has gone anywhere. And saying we won at “very little cost” may not be entirely ingenuous because the CPI level is still up from 260 in February 2020 to 307 as of September 2023. Economists measure the cost of disinflation by the rise in unemployment or decline in GDP that was required to lower th ..read more

Women make up the highest proportion of Congress than ever before – 29% of the House and 25% of the Senate, a considerable increase from even ten years ago when women held only 18% of Congressional seats. This milestone comes during the term of the first female Vice President, Kamala Harris.    Article by Rachel Supnick’26   Picture: Generative AI An upward trend in female representation is promising but becomes inconsistent at the regional level. Some parts of the country are still electing women at disproportionately low rates – particularly in the South. For almost one hundr ..read more

In a Georgetown study, researchers collected the 10-year net present value (NPV) of a degree from each of 210 liberal arts colleges. While the median 10-year NPV of a liberal arts degree ($54,400) is significantly lower than that of an engineering degree ($72,200), there are many liberal arts colleges with high NPV, such as Claremont McKenna College ($87,000). What are the markers of a high NPV liberal arts college? I found that, among coed liberal arts colleges, 10-year NPV is higher where there are more Asian students and male students and lower among colleges with more international student ..read more

Article by Armine Kardashyan and Weston Crewe Days before the US was expected to have its first ever default, Congressional Republicans and the White House negotiated a deal that lifted the debt ceiling and cut government spending. This was in part because the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections showed substantial deficits for the foreseeable future. The CBO is seen as the gold standard for policymakers who rely on their budget and economic projections for policy and negotiations. Despite the trust they have put in the CBO to guide them in these decisions, the data we have gathered ..read more

Article by Abizer Mamnoon and Anahitha Gopikumar Ontario Airport (ONT), located east of downtown Ontario in San Bernardino County, is the geographically closest airport to the Claremont Colleges. Used regularly by students, staff, and faculty, the community has a great interest in its success as measured by the breadth of destinations and frequency of flights. In November 2016, ownership of ONT was returned to the Inland Empire from LA County. By examining cargo volume, domestic and international passenger traffic, and the resulting financial implications, we show that the Ontario Airport has ..read more

Article by Derik Suria & Meghna Pamula Air pollution is a serious public health concern. Research shows significant disparities in exposure to air pollution and health outcomes among different communities by the level of income. Low-income communities are likely to be disproportionately affected by air pollution (Harvard study). African Americans and Latinos are more likely to suffer from respiratory diseases caused by air pollution, because they are more likely to live near sources of pollution, such as highways and industrial facilities (American Lung Association, 2023). This correlatio ..read more

Article by Sambhav Maheshwari and Karan Goel Upon completing this article, you’ll have effortlessly forecasted the future multiple times. The headline alone gave you a rough idea of whether this article will pique your interest. Now, these initial lines serve as a litmus test, determining if the remainder merits your attention. We’re all natural forecasters with constant incentive to try to predict the future, be it in the pursuit of self-interested outcomes, or in the search for answers pertaining the future of humanity such as the development of emerging technologies, geo-political risk-ana ..read more