When Emma Renzi Wise (BA ’19) got hooked on learning about environmental policy at the Ford School, she never imagined working for the New York City Department of Sanitation. But nearly six years after leaving Ann Arbor, Wise is the community...
When Congress passed the Financial Data and Transparency Act (FDTA) in 2022, it required all municipalities in the U.S. to modernize and digitize their financial reports. This is a heavy lift for small towns and school districts, most of which still...
Have you ever disassembled a broken coffee maker or a sink, convinced you could fix it, only to end up with a jumble of parts? As a child, Terry Nguyen’s (BA ’25) curiosity about how things worked led to a broken fan, a pile of parts, and no idea...
The economics of tariffs is surprisingly simple: they are a tax, which raises the price that buyers pay and that competing sellers inside the country can...
Moynihan: "State capacity” is hard to define and measure, and is perhaps seen as boring, but capacity is the hidden glue that holds public policy together, or, when debased, causes public policy to fall apart. If you care about the quality of...
Professor Elisabeth Gerber is the inaugural faculty director of the Ford School’s Online Master of Public Affairs (MPA) program, which will launch in January 2026. Read what she has to say about the new...
Dean Watkins-Hayes, at the Congressional Breakfast in DC, with Michigan in Washington undergraduates Ajay Morelli, Malinda Brunk, Rachel Ellisen, and Isaac Davis, and Riecker Fellow Hope Wang (MPP...
In an effort to spark democratic engagement on college campuses, the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy and the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy co-hosted the Big Ten Democracy Summit in February. More than 150...
Nearly 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. lack access to reliable transportation, making it one of the country's most common forms of material hardship, say University of Michigan...
This spring, Ford School economist Joshua Hausman delivered a talk on how the markets for cars and houses influenced the United States macroeconomy in the 1920s and 1930s. The talk was this year’s Bernie Saffran Lecture, in honor of longtime...
Ford School professor Betsey Stevenson has been widely sought for her insights, and concerns, about the implications of the Trump administration's proposed tariffs. Here are some of the notes Stevenson has shared with news outlets over the past few...
The Michigan Public Policy Survey, conducted last spring by U-M’s Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy, found most officials are unsure about the accuracy of public safety risk assessments made by automated tools such as AI. However, sheriffs...
The Trump administration has rolled out an array of policy shifts—from immigration to tariffs—but, notably, there hasn’t been a substantial wave of resistance from many politicians, especially Democrats, says University of Michigan expert Jonathan...
Christina Weiland, co-director of the Education Policy Initiative and professor at the Ford School, delivered her inaugural lecture as the Karl and Martha Kohn Professor of Social Policy. Weiland, who is also a professor at the Marsal Family School...
Through an executive order, President Trump intends to reclassify hundreds of thousands of federal civil servants' job titles as "schedule policy/career" positions. Don Moynihan from the Ford School told Reuters,"By deeming anyone involved in...
As the stock market faces shocks and falls from Trump's tariff policy, Marketplace has turned to the Ford School's Betsey Stevenson for an explanation of what this could mean for American workers. Stevenson told the network, “Layoffs are not the...
Reflecting on recent stock market instability, the Ford School's Betsey Stevenson told Bloomberg in an interview that, "I do think that he [Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve chairman] is going to reassure financial markets that we have a strong and...
“I genuinely have never been this concerned about the ability of that agency [Social Security Administration] to function,” said Pamela Herd, professor at the Ford School, in an interview cited by FactCheck.org. “Yes, I think people are right to be...
Ford School professor Justin Wolfers explained to the New York Times why the bon market sell-off is so problematic, he said, “People feel nervous about lending us money,” and more than that, “They are saying, ‘We’ve lost our faith in America and the...
The Detroit Free Press has recently highlighted Wayne County Executive Warren Evans' plans to combat child poverty through cash aid programs. Evans discussed his hope to bring Rx Kids, the anti-poverty program directed by the Ford School's Luke...
Eviction affects about 1 in 6 households in Michigan each year. Only 2% of tenants are represented by an attorney, placing the burden of understanding court processes and asserting legal rights on individual tenants. To brainstorm ways of tackling...
New research from the University of Michigan points to potential ways to leverage grocery delivery services to improve food access in Detroit, where 32% of residents live a mile or farther from a full-service grocery...
As the news buzzes with discussions of President Trump’s tariffs, economists and policymakers continue weighing the potential impacts of these policies. In a new opinion article published in the New York Times, Professor Justin Wolfers argues that...
"What we’re seeing is not targeted tariffs that are trying to help support certain aspects of American industry. This is across the board tariffs," said Bestsey Stevenson, professor at the Ford School. In a debate with an ex-campaign aide for...
In an era of rapid technological advancement, ensuring that innovation benefits everyone is urgent. Shobita Parthasarathy, professor and director of the Ford School’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy program, studies how technological...
Economist Justin Wolfers says levies could have a dramatic and long-lasting impact on consumers and the U.S. economy in an interview with Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences....
Bloomberg Network spoke with the Ford School's Betsey Stevenson in pursuit of an estimate for what the Fed will do in response to Trump's recently implemented tariff policies. Stevenson stated, "There is clearly an inflation risk, and we know that...
A major policy change in early education in the Philippines led to an unexpected drop in test scores and academic achievement—revealing the challenges that even well-intentioned reforms can have and the importance of wisely investing in the first...
