Courtney Van Houtven

@chvanhoutven.bsky.social

Health economist, health services and health policy researcher, long-term care, family caregiving. Department of Population Health Sciences Duke University and Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy

In our new research paper (joint work with Leander Andres, Gordon B. Dahl, Helmut Rainer, and Simone Schueller), we show that birthright citizenship substantially declines youth crime of children born to migrant families. Here are more details of the study design, data, results, and mechanisms:

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Top DOJ antitrust official Gail Slater objected that a merger was illegal because economists had found it would hurt consumers. The companies’ lobbyists talked to the US President. She was quickly fired. Our great American institutions are being perverted and corrupted. It will harm all of us.

Gales of Change: Gail Slater's Exit Signals Selective Federal Antitrust Enforcement - Law Offices of Snell & Wilmer

By Robert H. Feinberg and Thomas Williams On February 12, 2026, Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater resigned as head of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division. Her departure signals a...

swlaw.com

“This is about centralized control. About requiring that every research priority, every identified gap, every targeted funding decision be approved by political appointees rather than scientific program staff.” Elizabeth Ginexi.

Jennifer N. Victor@jenvictor.bsky.social · 6mo ago

This is an incredible documentation of the systematic, intentional collapse of American health science, by Elizabeth Ginexi. open.substack.com/pub/elizabet...

The Criminal Justice team at Arnold Ventures is looking for a pending/recent PhD with strong causal inference skills, for a remote, part-time consulting position. This is a great opportunity for someone considering a transition from academia to the policy space. Deadline: March 15 Please share!

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The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted. What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards. Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success.

Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302