A Note from the Executive Editor

• Author: Thomas A. Kecskemethy
• Date: 01 January 2015
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716214552959
• Published date: 01 January 2015

6 ANNALS, AAPSS, 657, January 2015

DOI: 10.1177/0002716214552959

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A Note from

the Executive

Editor

552959ANN The Annals of the American AcademyA Note from the Executive Editor

research-article2014

Public policy that advances the common

good should be informed by evidence and

by the best possible scientific analyses. For well

over a century, The American Academy of

Political and Social Science (AAPSS) has taken

that proposition as axiomatic, commissioning

and encouraging academic work that addresses

our most pressing social concerns. Much of that

work has been published through the years in

The ANNALS. Sound analysis, though, can get

short shrift in public discourse and in political

debate, sometimes because policy-makers are

unaware of its existence or persuaded by other

concerns, and often because academics are

unable to convey their findings in ways that are

sufficient to compel political action.

With the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize, the

AAPSS recognizes individuals who are champi-

ons of social science in the public realm—

women and men whose careers have

demonstrated how social research can make

our public policies more effective and our poli-

tics better. In 2013, we asked the winner of that

year’s Prize—William Julius Wilson—to deliver

a major public policy address in Washington,

D.C. in conjunction with the award, thereby

inaugurating the Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Lecture on Social Science and Public Policy.

This practice continued in 2014, with Moynihan

Prize recipient Joseph Stiglitz giving a talk on

the campus of the George Washington

University. We asked him to prepare a written

version of that address for publication in this

volume of The ANNALS, which he was kind

enough to do.

—Thomas A. Kecskemethy