Nonrival

Expert analysis from think tanks and academia, on public policy, economics, and technology.
Human experts. AI summaries.

AI exposure estimates for lawyers and coders may be wrong because we don't really know what they do all day

nber

• Existing job task databases like O*NET are outdated and incomplete, missing emerging tasks that workers already know about — which skews estimates of how much AI threatens different occupations.
• Stanford researchers built TaskNet, an AI-assisted system that interviews workers directly and synthesizes their responses into standardized task inventories, covering more ground than O*NET while adding dozens of tasks with no equivalent in the existing database.
• The new data shifts AI exposure estimates for key occupations like software developers and lawyers, suggesting that workforce policy built on old task data may be misallocating resources toward or away from the workers who actually need help.

A Three-Day Theater Workshop Made Indian Police Officers Less Likely to Blame Rape Victims — and the Effects Stuck

nber

• A randomized controlled trial across 417 police stations in Bihar, India tested whether a three-day expressive arts program (based on "Theatre of the Oppressed") could change how officers respond to gender-based violence — and it worked remarkably well.
• Treated officers were 15 percentage points less likely to blame victims in audits, dismissed fewer complaints, and administrative records showed a 41% reduction in delays in registering GBV cases, with more citizens reporting crimes over time.
• The effects spread: when trained officers transferred to new stations, their colleagues picked up similar attitudes, and junior female officers working under trained senior officers reported lower harassment and anxiety at work.

After Years of Sanctions, the U.S. Is Buying More Venezuelan Oil Than It Has in Nearly a Decade

eia

• U.S. imports of Venezuelan crude oil hit 701,000 barrels per day in July 2026, the highest level since 2017, after the U.S. eased sanctions following the capture of Nicolas Maduro earlier this year.
• The surge has completely redirected Venezuelan oil exports away from China — which received the majority of Venezuelan crude in 2025 — toward the United States, which is now the top destination.
• Gulf Coast refineries are well-suited for Venezuela's heavy crude, and rising global refinery margins are driving strong demand.

In the News

Polls Got the 2026 Direction Right but Understated Democrats' Wins by About 4 Points

pew

• Preelection polls correctly predicted Democratic gains in the House and Senate in 2026, but systematically understated the size of Democratic margins — by an average of about 4 points across 27 Senate and governor races.
• The error is larger than in the 2022 and 2018 midterms, roughly comparable to state-level errors in 2020, and may stem from likely-voter models that didn't fully account for the surge in Democratic turnout.
• Pew says it's too early to pinpoint the cause, but further analysis of who actually turned out — versus who polls expected to — should clarify whether the miss was about turnout modeling, vote-choice shifts, or both.

Analysis

The Next Wave of Globalization Won't Hit Factories — It'll Hit Office Workers

voxeu

• Globalization's first wave moved manufacturing jobs to cheaper countries; a new wave is now doing the same to white-collar, office-based work, enabled by digital technology and remote work tools.
• Knowledge workers in wealthy countries — accountants, coders, analysts — now face the same competitive pressures from low-wage countries that factory workers faced decades ago.
• This shift has major implications for wages, inequality, and policy in rich countries, where office jobs were long assumed to be insulated from global competition.

Also Worth a Look

• Democrats' midterm sweep means Trump almost certainly can't reshape the Supreme Court — and conservative justices may need to hold their seats until 2033 (scotusblog)
• Russia Is Luring — and Sometimes Trapping — Tens of Thousands of Foreigners Into Fighting in Ukraine (atlantic_council)
• Flesh-Eating Screwworm Is Back in the US After 50 Years, and Hunters May Be the Best Hope for Stopping It (the_conversation)
• Medicine Is Quietly Removing Race From Clinical Decision-Making — and Early Results Look Promising (kff)
• The Secret Behind America's Scientific Success Isn't Federal Funding — It's the Network That Funding Built (issues)
• The concentration of AI spending (voxeu)
• Corporate Ignorance About Supply Chain Abuses Isn't a Lie — It's How the System Was Designed (promarket)