Public event

*Stream* Kalil will discuss some of the S&T policy priorities of President Obama as well as “lessons learned” from his service at the White House, and address future challenges for U.S. S&T policy.

Governments have increasingly relied on exchange rate stabilization policies, specifically intervention operations in currency markets and capital controls, to offset external shocks.  The focus on exchange rate stabilization is not limited to countries with pegged exchange rate regimes.  Indeed, a number of countries that currently actively intervene in currency markets self-describe as floaters. The U.S. has responded by raising concerns that these policies amount to currency manipulation. Article IV of the IMF Articles of Agreement requires that members “avoid manipulating exchange rates” in order to gain an unfair competitive advantage over other members. Separately (since 1989) the U.S. Treasury must report to Congress biannually regarding whether individual trading partners are manipulating currencies for unfair advantage.  This talk will examine both the theoretical underpinning and empirical evidence on currency intervention and manipulation, with the goal of better understanding when exchange rate stabilization is effective from the point of view of domestic policy-makers and when it should be considered manipulative from a global perspective.

Join us for a conversation and book talk with Harold Koh on his new book: The Trump Administration and International Law.

Drawing on examples from city government in the UK and US, Carrie will share what a Chief Digital Officer does all day, and a glimpse of the future of city government.

The Program for Practical Policy Engagement (P3E) in partnership with the Students of Color in Public Policy (SCPP) will hold a professional development workshop featuring guest speaker James Feagin, founder & CEO of projects+PEOPLE.

Join the Program for Practical Policy Engagement,  Communications & Outreach, Public Engagement & Impact, and Michigan News for a Getting Stuff Done: Communications Skills Series.

In his new book, The Once and Future Worker, Manhattan Institute scholar Oren Cass challenges our basic assumptions about what prosperity means and where it comes from.

The massive dollar amounts associated with student loan debt and the impact on individuals and the financial stability of the overall economy has attracted the attention of journalists, economists, and average Americans. There are, however, several myths associated with these eye-popping numbers, and Susan Dynarski, Professor of public policy, education and economics will discuss a few of these myths in our January Blue Bag Lunch Talk. For example, in a recent paper for Brookings, "The Trouble with Student Loans? Low Earnings, Not High Debt," Professor Dynarski debunks the popular notion that more student debt leads to higher student loan default rates. In fact, research shows that default rates are highest among individuals with smaller loan balances. Students borrowing under $5,000 default at a rate of 34 percent, compared to 18 percent for those borrowing more than $100,000. Among policy proposals advocated by Professor Dynarski to address the student loan crisis is to automatically enroll borrowers who are late on payments in income-based repayment, or adjust loan payments each pay period, similar to the current income-tax withholding system.

A display of Rachel Woolf’s documentary photography capturing Lourdes Salazar Bautista and her family’s experience of deportation.

This will be a presentation of two large-scale field experiments designed to test the hypothesis that group membership can increase participation and pro-social lending for an online crowdlending community, Kiva. The first experiment uses variations on a simple email manipulation to encourage Kiva members to join a lending team, testing which types of team recommendation emails are most likely to get members to join teams as well as the subsequent impact on lending. We find that emails do increase the likelihood that a lender joins a team, and that joining a team increases lending in a short window following our intervention. The impact on lending is large relative to median lender lifetime loans. We also find that lenders are more likely to join teams recommended based on location similarity rather than team status. Our results suggest team recommendations can be an effective behavioral mechanism to increase pro-social lending. In a second field experiment, we manipulate forum messages to explore the underlying mechanisms for teams to be effective. 

Sports remains a fascination to millions of Americans but also presents a great range of challenging public policy issues at both the professional and collegiate levels.  Please join us for a candid conversation about "Sports in America" with former Los Angeles Dodger General Manager Ned Colletti.

This panel of three experts examines the psychological, political, and legal impact of the policy on the families, policy makers, and public opinions, asking the question of what's at stake.

* Stream! * A symposium to increase awareness of and dissect problems with the existing presidential selection system.

The rebirth of Detroit is dependent on a multitude of factors including issues related to urban infrastructure, the revitalization of neighborhoods, and beyond. Critical to this rebirth is investment in the city. For the city administration, this investment means being able to collect sufficient tax revenues to turn on streetlights, police neighborhoods, replace infrastructure, and finance other projects. Unfortunately, one consequence of the challenges faced by the city has been a culture of non-payment of the taxes owed. Over the last three years, the Master of Accounting students at the Ross School of Business have worked closely with the city to help address these non-payment issues. This talk will describe the projects the students have worked on, the benefits to both the city and to the students, and the work that still needs to be done. We will be joined by the city’s Director of Audit and Compliance, Odell Bailey.

The Ford School’s Michigan Politics and Policy class (PubPol 475/750) will be joined by Chase Cantrell, Executive Director and Founder of Building Community Value for a discussion about the future of Detroit on Weds Oct 31, 2:30pm. We have moved this class session to the larger Ford School Annenberg Auditorium (1120) so this lecture can be open to the public -- we hope to see you there!

In this panel discussion, Michigan Engineering Professor J. Alex Halderman and LSA Professor Walter Mebane, an expert on detecting electoral fraud, address election security.

Featuring a presentation by Ms. Nu on her advocacy work with Rohingya women.

María Elena Salinas with journalists Ginger Thompson and Aaron Nelsen, and policy expert Ann Lin

The panel will look at two initiatives on the November 2018 ballot: the Voters Not Politicians initiative to reform redistricting (Proposal 2), and the Promote the Vote initiative to expand voting and registration opportunities (Proposal 3).

Historically, public infrastructure systems such as roads, water utilities, and schools are financed using a combination of tax revenue, government and revenue-backed bonds. This system has repeatedly fallen short due to insufficient tax revenue and political aversion towards funding “social infrastructure”. Especially for schools, the access to quality infrastructure is highly correlated (in the US) to poverty, stemming from property values, credit worthiness and other factors. A recent bill (not passed) required a 1:6 leverage of federal with state and private finance, compared to 1:12 in Europe and 1:30 proposed under the Climate accords. Either infrastructure has not been built or upgraded, or private capital has stepped in the breach. At the Center for Smart Infrastructure Finance, we're asking whether data-driven models can close the gap by taking advantage of the internet of things (IoT): smart sensors that deliver information which can be monetized. This seminar will explore how private financing models that leverage digital data supply chains to attract 'efficient capital' (e.g. insurance, options trades, debt securities, variable interest rate bonds) can be adapted to financing public infrastructure while limiting recourse to the citizens that use it, and leveling the economic disparities of access.

The Ford School celebrates the conclusion of Mary Corcoran's 40+ years as an active faculty member here at the University of Michigan.

The Ford School Alumni Board will be meeting for its bi-annual meeting.