Virginia Postrel

For Americans under 50, inflation is little more than a theoretical concept. But for those of us born in the late 1950s and 1960s, the inflation of the 1970s was a formative experience we’d rather not repeat. Inflation was as much a part of our childhood as COVID is for today’s kids. It was…

A Q&A with author Rajika Bhandari on why outdated immigration policies are harming America’s ability to attract and retain foreign students. Virginia Postrel: You came to the United States as a graduate student in psychology in 1992 and have worked for many years at the Institute for…

People have been predicting the ascent of telemedicine since the 1920s, but even mass broadband use wasn’t enough to make it catch on. Doctors were too worried about losing income, privacy restrictions limited the utility of software and people were just too accustomed to the old ways of doing…

The coronavirus has been rough on museums. An October survey for the American Alliance of Museums found that two-thirds had cut back on public programs, more than half had laid off or furloughed staff and nearly a third were still closed to the public. Those that were open had spent an average…

As the many mothers who’ve left their jobs to cope with pandemic remote schooling can testify, “free” household labor isn’t really free. It always entails the opportunity cost of what you could otherwise be doing. But women’s domestic tasks get short shrift in the history of labor-saving…

My neighbors’ children haven’t seen the inside of a classroom since spring. The book I checked out from the UCLA library to research this March column is still in my bedroom, gathering dust. Not even the drop-off return box is open. We haven’t eaten inside a restaurant or entered a museum, library…

During the two and a half years I spent researching a forthcoming book, I frequently marveled at the cornucopia of materials available online. I could have written my book, "The Fabric of Civilization," without those resources, but it would have taken longer and certain factual questions would have…

Under normal circumstances, internist Jenni Levy makes house calls, checking on patients with chronic conditions and serving as what she calls “rolling urgent care.” She works for Landmark Health, which offers supplemental home visits to people with Medicare Advantage plans and a high risk of…