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.
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.
The objective of the North American Colloquium is to provide a forum that strengtens a wider North American Conversation and more fruitful trilateral cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the US. Colloquium will allow for distinct internal/regional and indigenous perspectives within each country to be showcased.
Estimating intergenerational mobility in developing countries is difficult because matched parent-child income records are rarely available and education is measured very coarsely. In particular, there are no established methods for comparing educational mobility for subsamples of the population when the education distribution is changing over time.
Languages use different systems for classifying nouns. Gender languages assign many — sometimes all — nouns to distinct sex-based categories, masculine and feminine. We construct a new data set, documenting this property for more than four thousand languages which together account for more than 99 percent of the world’s population.
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 event will be a half-day symposium at which scholars, public officials, private sector representatives, and other census stakeholders will address preparations for the 2020 Census and the challenges it faces, include funding, the proposed citizenship question, and the implications of an inaccurate count.
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!
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.
Ross School of Business & Ford School of Public Policy
Friends, colleagues, students, and collaborators of John Enrico DiNardo are invited to attend a special conference at the University of Michigan that will celebrate his life and career.
Michigan League Ballroom and Rackham Graduate School Amphitheatre
This workshop will be the first to take an in-depth look at basic income as a poverty alleviation strategy and spur the next generation of research on basic income studies.
The Economics Department at the University of Michigan will be hosting the fourth H2D2 Research Day on Friday, April 20, 2018. We are pleased to have Amitabh Chandra (Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy and Director of Health Policy Research, Harvard Kennedy School) as our keynote speaker. We intend for this mini-conference to draw both faculty and student attendees from the University of Michigan as well as from the greater mid-west and Canada. The conference will focus on the subfields of health, history, development, demography and family economics, broadly defined.
Causal Inference in Education Research Seminar (CIERS)
About CIERS: The objective of the Causal Inference in Education Research Seminar (CIERS) is to engage students and faculty from across the university in conversations around education research using various research methodologies.
Causal Inference in Education Research Seminar (CIERS)
Wealth is highly correlated between parents and their children; however, little is known about the extent to which these relationships are genetic or determined by environmental factors. We use administrative data on the net wealth of a large sample of Swedish adoptees merged with similar information for their biological and adoptive parents.
The objective of the Causal Inference in Education Research Seminar (CIERS) is to engage students and faculty from across the university in conversations around education research using various research methodologies.
Causal Inference in Education Research Seminar (CIERS)
The objective of the Causal Inference in Education Research Seminar (CIERS) is to engage students and faculty from across the university in conversations around education research using various research methodologies.
