Policy Topics

Economics and finance

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Betsey Stevenson on the June jobs report: new jobs, flat wages, falling labor force participation

Jul 10, 2015

The American economy added 223,000 jobs this month, but wages have not risen and labor force participation has fallen to its lowest level since 1977, according to the Department of Labor's June jobs report. As a member of President Obama's Council...

News

Wolfers takes on Greek financial crisis in latest NY Times Upshot

Jul 1, 2015

Amid the Greek financial crisis, heads have turned to experts like Justin Wolfers to help break down the complex economic factors that have led to the current situation. A professor of public policy and economics at the Ford School, Wolfers is known...

Sue Dynarski’s latest NYT TheUpshot column takes on income gap in college graduation

Jun 2, 2015

In a June 2 column in the New York Times, Ford School professor Susan Dynarski writes that “class trumps ability when it comes to college graduation.”Dynarski cites a recent publication from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which...

In memoriam: Robert M. Stern, internationally renowned economist and trade economist

May 18, 2015

We are deeply saddened to report that Robert M. Stern, professor emeritus of economics and public policy, passed away yesterday after a week-long hospital stay for heart trouble.Bob joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1961 and the...

Dominguez talks China in Marketplace story comparing global economy today to 1993

Apr 22, 2015

Kathryn Dominguez lent her expertise in international financial markets to American Public Media’s Marketplace yesterday. In “Trade Agreement, then and now,” reporter Nancy Marshall-Genzer compared today’s global economy to the economy in 1993, the...

Dean Yang’s research featured in HuffPo story about increased access to banking in developing economies

Apr 15, 2015

Dean Yang’s research is featured in “More people in the developing world are getting bank accounts, but there’s an asterisk on that progress,” an article by Jonathan Cohn in today’s Huffington Post. Cohn is referring to a new report from the World...

Preventing vote-selling in the Philippines image

New York Review of Books features Sheldon Danziger’s Legacies of the War on Poverty

Apr 7, 2015

This April, Christopher Jencks reviews Sheldon Danziger’s Legacies of the War on Poverty (Russell Sage, 2013) in a two-part series for The New York Review of Books. Jencks says Legacies’ chapters are “packed with evidence, make judicious judgments,...

Wolfers takes aim at recent study claiming parenting time doesn’t matter

Apr 2, 2015

In his latest New York Times Upshot editorial, Justin Wolfers took aim at a recent study on parenting time by mothers that has garnered widespread national media coverage. The study, “Does the Amount of Time Mothers Spend With Children or...

Ford School students host annual US-Canada conference

Mar 31, 2015

The 6th annual Ford+SPPG Conference took place earlier this month at Joan and Sanford Weill Hall in Ann Arbor. The event brings together MPP candidates from the Ford School and the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance...

News

Hausman examines economic impacts of recent shale gas boom in Brookings paper

Mar 23, 2015

Welfare and distributional implications of shale gas, a paper by Catie Hausman, provides the first estimates of broad-scale welfare and distributional implications of the recent shale gas boom. The report, coauthored with U-M economics professor...

“We’re frighteningly in the dark about student debt” writes Dynarski for The New York Times

Mar 21, 2015

The United States government has a portfolio of roughly $1 trillion in student loans, many of which appear to be troubled writes Susan Dynarski in the business section of the Sunday New York Times. Dynarski’s column, “We’re frighteningly in the dark...

Microfinance study: Yang finds people may give more generously when they can choose what their dollars purchase

Mar 17, 2015

At a microfinance bank in Maputo, Mozambique, Dean Yang and colleagues engaged clients in a lab-in-the-field experiment with interesting implications for those who care about increasing the number and level of remittances, the financial...

Dynarski on how to boost graduation rates at community colleges

Mar 12, 2015

In this year’s State of the Union address, President Obama put forth a plan to make a student’s first two years of community college free. But is that plan viable? Susan Dynarski sees problems that must be fixed before it can conceivably work.“How...

Dean Yang publishes findings from randomized study of microsavings’ impact on agriculture, poverty

Mar 5, 2015

“Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa employs two-thirds of the labor force and generates about one-third of GDP growth,” writes Dean Yang in the introduction to “Facilitating savings from agriculture: field experimental evidence from Malawi,” a...

Ford Case Competition winners present to East Lansing City Council

Feb 20, 2015

At the East Lansing City Council’s February 17 meeting, five first year Ford School masters students, winners of the inaugural Ford Case Competition, presented to the council their proposal to resolve the city’s downtown parking concerns. The city,...

Dean Yang explores policies to increase the development impacts of migration for World Bank

Feb 12, 2015

“Evidence on Policies to Increase the Development Impacts of International Migration,” co-written by Dean Yang, has been published in the World Bank Research Observer. Posted on January 20, Yang and co-author David McKenzie of the World Bank aim to,...

Do placement exams bar students from higher ed? McFarlin says no. Read Education Week story

Feb 5, 2015

Education Week highlights Isaac McFarlin Jr.’s latest study in “Failing a Placement Exam Does Not Discourage College Enrollment,” posted by Caralee Adams on January 15.“State test cited in lower college enrollments,” a 1995 Dallas Morning News...

saac McFarlin discusses his research on Texas Top 10 Percent Plan with NPR image

“Gains from Economic Recovery Still Limited to Top One Percent,” says Justin Wolfers

Jan 30, 2015

“By this measure, the concentration of income among the richest Americans remains at levels last seen nearly a century ago,” says Justin Wolfers in his January 27, New York Times Upshot column, “Gains From Economic Recovery Still Limited to Top One...

Dynarski talks education and tax reform with LA Times

Jan 30, 2015

The White House is backing down on a minor provision detailed in the Obama administration’s tax reform proposals, but Susan Dynarski doesn’t think that provision should be given up on so easily. The Los Angeles Times’ Kathleen Hennessy writes...

Wolfers testifies before Senate Finance Committee on Jobs and Economic Growth

Jan 22, 2015

Justin Wolfers testified before the Senate Finance Committee today in a hearing on jobs and the economy. Wolfers spoke to the country’s economic recovery, long-term unemployment, and the need for increased investment in education (video here).He...

Justin Wolfers testifying before a congressional committee

Stevenson cited in coverage of Obama’s push for paid sick leave for workers

Jan 18, 2015

Betsey Stevenson was cited in numerous stories the past several days regarding the Obama Administration’s push to require companies to give workers up to seven days of paid sick leave each year.Stevenson, currently on leave from the Ford School,...

Justin Wolfers on the research, how pay increases influence and increase productivity

Jan 14, 2015

“Economists have long argued that increases in worker pay can lead to improvements in productivity—indeed, that it can actually be profitable to pay workers higher wages,” write Justin Wolfers and Jan Zilinsky in “Higher wages for low-income workers...

Obama’s college proposal a bid to rev the economy says Wolfers

Jan 10, 2015

“If [Obama] succeeds in persuading more of the next generation to continue beyond high school…there’s a strong chance the rate of economic growth will be bolstered for decades to come,” says Justin Wolfers in his January 9, New York Times Upshot...

Efforts to weaken financial reform will continue to emerge warns Barr

Jan 8, 2015

Michael Barr suspects Republicans will continue to target aspects of Dodd-Frank writes Eric Garcia of MarketWatch in the January 7 story, “House rejects bill granting banks more time to comply with Volker.” This Wednesday, the House voted on a...

Dynarski's FAFSA-on-a-postcard proposal gaining traction says LA Times

Jan 7, 2015

The "FAFSA-on-a-postcard legislation is gaining traction," writes LA Times reporter Carla Rivera in the January 6 article,"Move to simplify federal student aid application form gains traction." In the coming days, Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN)...

News

Whitman's latest Freep op-ed: economy is looking up, but not by much

Dec 19, 2014

Marina v.N. Whitman was featured in the December 13 edition of the Detroit Free Press as a Guest Writer. Her article, “The economy, looking up, but not by much,” analyzes the modest economic steps that Detroit, Michigan, and the United States have...

State & Hill

What good is history, anyway?

Dec 18, 2014

With public service in our DNA, what we’d really like to do is to peer into the future, to see and shape what’s coming around the bend. So we asked ourselves, ‘Can a deeper understanding of the past help to shape and inform the future?’ The myth...

State & Hill

Policy analysis and prescience, making life better

Dec 18, 2014

To solve a vexing problem. To seize a promising opportunity. To find the best path forward. For centuries, for millennia, we’ve sought the power of prescience. These days, policy analysis—well and thoughtfully done—is among the most powerful tools...

Policy analysis and prescience, making life better

State & Hill

The Power of Policy

Dec 17, 2014

Public policy is a principled guide to action, designed to lead to the greater good. As we celebrate our centennial as America’s first graduate-level training program in public administration, we take a moment to reflect on the powerful role policy...

State & Hill

Measuring poverty, a more accurate picture

Dec 9, 2014

By Miriam Wasserman Jordan Matsudaira, PhD alum, stays second year to work as chief staff economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers Only a very small number of economists get to work for the Council of Economic Advisers....

Measuring poverty, a more accurate picture